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If you’re on a diet, you may be tempted to weigh yourself every day. It’s time to step away from weighing yourself daily.

Are you in a habit of weighing yourself daily? It’s time to stop. This is doing more harm than good to your mental health.

I know it’s hard to stop doing, especially if you’re in a habit of doing so. You want to see if you managed to drop a pound or two after your efforts the day before. Maybe you want to see if you’re as heavy as you feel after a night of drinking.

The problem is this daily weighing is going to start playing on your mind. You need to switch to weekly or bi-weekly instead.

You end up obsessing over your weight

One of the biggest issues with weighing yourself daily* is how you start to obsess. This can lead to an eating disorder, even without you realizing it. You’re so focused on what the numbers are saying each morning or night.

This takes all the joy out of life. You can’t go out for a meal without worrying about what it looks like on the scales. You can’t spend time with friends without worrying about what you’ll do to your body. Your weight becomes everything in your mind, and that’s not healthy for you.

Your weight fluctuates throughout the month

As a woman, your weight will fluctuate. Most people see their weight fluctuate throughout the day by as much as five pounds. It all depends on when you eat and what you eat. Fluctuation is normal. As a woman, we’re also dealing with bloating, hormones, and so much more.

I remember a Weight Watchers leader telling me that the time of the month doesn’t affect your weight. It really does. Think of the way hormones affect everything. There are connections to our digestive systems.

If you’re weighing yourself daily, you’re going to see all those fluctuations. This gets disheartening. You think you had a great day and then you step on the scales the next morning to find you’ve gained weight. It wasn’t to do with the food but just the way your body is that day.

When you switch to weekly weigh-ins, you’ll find that most of the fluctuations even out.

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Weighing yourself daily makes it harder to see a loss

You shouldn’t see a lot of loss each day. A healthy weight loss is only one to two pounds per week. That would mean you’re only losing a few ounces each day, and depending on your scales, you’re not going to see them. So, by weighing yourself on a daily basis, you’re not going to see a lot of change.

It’s okay not to see a lot of change, but this does end up somewhat disheartening, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose.

When you switch to weekly, you’ll see that healthy weight loss. This allows you to see that you are losing weight, and you’re more likely to stick to your plan.

You start off in a bad mood when weighing yourself daily

If you step on the scales and see that you gained weight after what you thought was a good day the day before, how will you feel? You end up starting your day in a bad mood. This can even throw you off track from your diet* throughout that day.

I always preferred my weekly weigh-ins to be after work and just before dinner. I would always do it at the same time each day for consistency and to see the real results. That meal after was always my “cheat meal.” I didn’t count it and just focused on what I wanted to do. A good or bad result on the scale would still mean something good that night, so I didn’t worry too much about what the scales said.

How often should you weigh yourself?

So, how often should you weigh yourself if you shouldn’t do it daily? This is going to be up to you. I do recommend weekly. I also recommend doing it with the same scales, in the same place, at the same time each week.

Consistency is key with tracking your weight loss. There are so many other factors involved in our weight, especially as women. If we remain consistent, we get a clearer result, even if it’s not the one that we wanted. This helps to set up a plan for the following week.

If you want to weigh yourself bi-weekly or monthly, that’s completely up to you. You could end up seeing bigger losses, but you could also see bigger gains as you’re not keeping track as often if you fall off the diet wagon. Just remain consistent.

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What are you struggling with in your weight loss journey? Let me know in the comments below so I can support you.