Why does my weight fluctuate so much day to day?

The scale weighs everything at once. On Ep. 135, Nikkiey points out that it only measures your body against gravity. It can't tell you how much of that number is muscle, water, bone or the dinner you haven't digested yet. That is why it can jump while your fat loss is right on track. Here is what the episodes name:

On Ep. 35, coach Paula Ciarniello explains why one indulgent day can show up as several pounds. In a deficit, your glycogen tank is only partly full. A day at maintenance refills it, and water comes into the muscle with the carbs. Salty or inflammatory food can also hold water under the skin, which is the puffiness you notice. She told a story about being six pounds heavier after a day at a fair. Gaining even one pound of fat would take about 3,500 calories above maintenance, so that jump was water, not fat.

Nikkiey's bigger point on Ep. 390 is that this noise derails good plans. Women give up four days or four weeks in, often right before things start to move. One week without the scale moving doesn't mean fat loss has stopped. Jodi, a WarriorBabe client on Ep. 256, now treats the scale as one data point. She pays more attention to how her clothes fit, the mirror and her progress photos. Weighing at the same time each morning, after the bathroom, cuts out a lot of the noise. Ep. 245 notes your evening weight will always read higher.