Why Does My Weight Fluctuate So Much Day to Day?

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The scale can't dictate exactly what it is it's measuring. It's just your body against gravity, basically, and that's all the number is telling you. It's a number, but it doesn't tell you how much is your skeletal muscle mass, how much is water weight, how much is your bone density, all of these things. So keep that in the back of your mind the next time you step on that sucker.

What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott.

Welcome to today's episode, episode 135, where we are going to chat about and answer two common questions that I get all of the time. This was actually inspired by a recent story that I posted on my Instagram. If you guys don't follow me, go follow me at Nikkiey Stott, N-I-K-K-I-E-Y S-T-O-T-T. A couple weeks ago, I put up a questions box on my story, and this question was popping up a couple times. It's popped up a couple times in the past as well. Actually, there are two specific questions. So it was inspired by that.

I love to drop questions on my story. I want to engage with you guys there on the platform, but also take those questions that you have and bring them to this podcast. Like I always say, if there are any questions worthy of long answers that can make up a full podcast length of me talking and sharing the answers, then I'm going to do it. And so that's what I'm going to do with you guys today.

Hopefully, if this podcast resonates with you and you know it could resonate with somebody else who has similar questions, you'll share it. That would mean so much to me, from the bottom of my heart. And second, I hope you leave this podcast feeling a little bit lighter and easier about your progress, wherever you're at along your journey. If you're judging your progress, whether it's good or bad, whether it's what you want to see, or you're frustrated because it's not what you want to see, solely on the scale, I'm hoping that these answers to these commonly asked questions will make you feel different about the light in which you look at your progress. If you're solely focusing on progress based on the scale, that's what we're going to talk about today.

The first question we're going to dive into is: is it normal for scale weight to fluctuate two to three pounds on a daily basis? And then the second one deals with the same concept, but it has to do with the amount of food that you do or don't eat on a daily basis.

OK, so let's first talk about whether it's normal when you step on the scale. First and foremost, you guys, if you have a relationship with the scale, what we say to our clients inside of WarriorBabe is: let's bring the reality of your relationship with the scale, the awareness of it, into the light, so we can understand how you feel with it.

There are levels to your relationship with the scale. One level may be that you look at the scale on a regular basis and you have an emotional response to it. If the scale goes up, you're emotionally triggered into defeat, and you go on with the rest of your day maybe making food choices that aren't necessarily in alignment with what you would normally have. Or you're emotionally upset and now the rest of your day is in a negative light, or your mood is altered by what that number says on the scale. Or the reverse, which is still level one: you're super excited if the scale goes down.

In those two scenarios, the scale has control over your emotional state. If that's the case and you're coming in and working with a coach, what's normally recommended is, OK, we're not going to pay attention to the scale on a regular basis. We're probably not going to pay attention on a weekly basis. We're just going to use it as a biweekly measurement, resource and tool, as a checkpoint along your journey.

Then there's a next level. You've kind of graduated from that. You're learning, you're understanding, you're educating yourself on all of the other amazing tools and resources that can be a part of your story in terms of progress. And so you graduate to level two. I'm making these levels up literally as I speak. But level two is maybe now you're on a weekly cadence with your coach. You're measuring every single week and checking in on, say, Thursdays, or a Saturday or a Monday. You're seeing the progression there through that tool, and using it in alignment with other tools you may be using to track your progress. So that's level two.

And then level three is the graduation phase, which I would say a lot of people can get to once they embark further along their journey. This is where a majority of my clients are. I don't take on new one-on-one clients, but I still have clients I've been coaching for at least four years now. We get to the point where they understand the concept of the scale. They understand it is just a tool. They have a relationship with it that way, and they control it. They control their emotions. They can step off the scale and they're not easily swayed by it.

Those clients at level three understand the tool and how it's used, and you can grasp what I'm going to dive into today with answer number one. You know that measuring on a daily basis gives you a little bit more data, and you use it as just that, as data. You know that, OK, today I weighed this. Maybe tomorrow I'm going to fluctuate two to three pounds. Maybe the next day I'm going to go down a pound. That is totally normal.

So to answer that question, yes, it is completely normal to fluctuate two to three pounds daily due to so many different factors, which I'm going to dive into in a second. But at level three, you're able to use the data across seven days and grab an average of what your weight looked like that week. Then you can use that average in the weeks to come as a tool to measure your progress along the way. A lot of the clients I still coach do that, and I know a lot of the WarriorBabes working with our elite and senior coaches inside the program are doing it that way.

So keep that in the back of your mind as I go through this podcast today. Honestly assess where you may be with yourself, your journey and your relationship to the scale, and reassess how you may need to gather that data for yourself along your journey. Is it every other week? Is it weekly? Is it a daily average over a week span? Wherever it may be.

OK, so to get into the answer, know that it is completely freaking normal for your weight to fluctuate two to three pounds daily due to various factors. I'm going to talk about five specifically, because I feel these five are the most prominent to this answer.

Number one could be water retention. It could be that your body has retained more water because, let's say, yesterday you had a higher sodium intake. Or yesterday you were more dehydrated than normal because you didn't drink enough water. Or you're experiencing hormonal changes because it's that time of the month, ladies, for those who menstruate. The week before you get your period is when you start to feel some of those PMS symptoms. That's when you start to feel a little more bloat coming on. So if you step on the scale, you may fluctuate up a pound, two pounds, three pounds depending on how severe those hormonal shifts are internally, which is completely different for everybody. But those are completely normal.

A higher intake of sodium can cause your cells to absorb water. Same if you're a little bit dehydrated because you didn't drink as much water the day before. All of these things factor into your body retaining more water. That doesn't necessarily mean that you are gaining fat. It doesn't mean the number on the scale reflects you gaining body fat or gaining weight. It's just that yesterday your body retained more water because of these things that happened.

And again, the scale can't dictate exactly what it is it's measuring. It's just your body against gravity, basically, and that's all the number is telling you. It's a number, but it doesn't tell you how much is your skeletal muscle mass, how much is water weight, how much is your bone density, all of these things. So keep that in the back of your mind the next time you step on that sucker. All right?

Another factor that could make your daily weight fluctuate is your food intake. It could be the amount or the weight of food you had, or the weight of beverages you consumed, that isn't instantly processed by your body. For example, heavier meals or high fiber intake can temporarily increase your scale reading. And this relates to the time of day, too. Actually, I'm going to marry these two together, because it's really important that they're married together: food intake and time of day.

Your weight can also vary throughout the day based on the food and fluid intake you've had that day. So let's say you ate a heavier meal late at night. Your body didn't have enough time to process that heavy meal. So by the time you step on the scale in the morning, your weight is probably going to fluctuate a little bit. Keep that in the back of your mind, because a lot of you go out to dinner, or you have a big dinner with your family, and maybe it's happening at 8 p.m., and then you step on the scale at 6 o'clock in the morning. Your body hasn't had enough time to process that meal yet. So take that into consideration. That could totally be a reason you see a temporary increase.

Another factor could be the exercise and physical activity you did the day before. After an intense leg day, an intense back day, or an intense overall training session, your muscles will retain water to aid in the recovery process, which will lead to temporary scale fluctuations.

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If you just did leg day the day before, your body is starting its recovery process, and it's going to pull in as much water as possible to help recover, grow and repair that muscle. So if you step on the scale the next day, you'd better be expecting a little bit of fluctuation in weight. It could go up or it could go down, so it could go either way. But keep that in the back of your mind as to why you could see a fluctuation on the scale.

My favorite one that I need to touch on as a reason the scale could be increasing, and I was trying not to plug this into the other factors, which is hard to do, but here we are: carbohydrate intake, you guys. I've talked about this in previous podcasts. I talk about it all the time, because hashtag I want to make carbs great again.

Carbohydrates get a really bad rep because a lot of people in the industry don't have a lot of knowledge. And a lot of women, hey, just calling it for what it is, this isn't your occupation. This isn't something you've gone to school for, educated yourself on, or gotten certified in. You have your life and your responsibilities, your own job and all the things. That's why you hire people to give you these skills and help you get educated on this world. But people immediately assume that carbs make you fat.

When you eat carbs, it leads to glycogen storage. I've talked about this before. It leads to glycogen storage in your muscles and in your liver, and glycogen binds to water. So a higher carb intake means increased water retention, reflected in a fluctuation you could see on the scale.

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I've actually dived way deeper into things like how, when you go and strength train, your body absorbs all this glycogen because it's like, oh yeah, I get to do this fun activity. I need to hold on to this so I can exert it when I go do the strength training exercise. At the same time, every time you eat carbs, it leads to that storage in your muscles and in your liver, and it holds on to water.

So it's the same thing I touched on with water retention. It's another factor, like sodium intake and dehydration: the amount of carbs you eat, especially if you eat carbs late at night or have a big carb meal late at night. It's binding and holding on to water. It increases water retention. So when you step on that scale, it's not that you gained fat, like I said earlier. It's just an increase in water retention in your body. And water retention doesn't equal fat. It doesn't mean you gained a pound or two of fat. It's just that your body is holding on to a little bit of excess water because of all the things going on internally, for all the different reasons I'm sharing. OK?

And then one last thing I want to touch on to answer this question. Please, ladies, please, please, please, in addition to everything I just shared with you, do not eat throughout the day and then step on the scale at the end of the day. Typically, you're going to see the scale fluctuate probably even five to six pounds due to the meals you've eaten, the beverages you've had, the strength training you did, the carbohydrates you had. It's all being held in your body. Your body is trying to process it and hasn't fully processed it yet. So, boom, you step on the scale and it's going to be up if you're weighing yourself at the end of the day. Never, ever, ever do that along your journey, because that is just setting yourself up for a doomsday feeling that you failed. Think about everything your body just went through that day.

The best time to step on the scale is in the morning, when your body has had a full night's sleep. It's processed everything from the day before. It's in the most relaxed state possible. You could possibly be stressed, and maybe some of you are, but the majority of you probably aren't. Hopefully not. Man, my mind's spiraling. Probably so many people are. I'm stressed as soon as I wake up, as soon as the alarm goes off. But the probability is lower that in that short time frame after you wake up and go to the bathroom, before you step on the scale, you're stressed out. You're a little less stressed before you take on the day.

That is the best time to step on the scale. Your body has processed everything, like I just explained. You haven't had any food. You haven't eaten breakfast. You went to the bathroom. You peed. Maybe you had a number two as well. You don't have to have a number two in order to weigh yourself, I want to say that too. But at least you went to the bathroom, you peed, you haven't eaten anything, and then you step on the scale. That's the best time to weigh yourself. So please, for the rest of your entire journey, if you weigh yourself at night, it stops right now, and you start weighing yourself in the morning.

OK. So that answers the first question: is it normal for the scale to fluctuate two to three pounds on a regular basis? Yes, it is normal.

The second thing I want to elaborate on regarding the scale. The question was: on the days that I under-eat, the scale goes up. So why, on the days I under-eat, does the scale go up? This can be attributed to several different things, and I'm going to touch on what I feel are the most prominent, so you can understand what's happening when you under-eat and why your body could be almost working against you in a sense, because it's trying to maintain its natural homeostasis internally.

So, a couple of things. Water retention, all the way through. Water retention, like in the first answer, but this one plays out a little differently. When you under-eat, and this applies to all the answers I'm going to give here, it can cause your body stress. It could potentially increase cortisol levels. When your cortisol levels are elevated and you're stressed out, this causes your body to hold on to and retain more water. Cortisol is a fat-storing hormone, if your cortisol levels are always elevated. I'm not just saying on one day. That other thought process is for a different conversation, because it could totally be elaborated on. But say this is just one day that you under-ate. Your body's kind of stressed out. It feels like it's working a little more on demand, because you probably were very active the day before and you under-ate this day. So it's a little bit stressed, it's going to increase cortisol levels, and this will lead you to hold on to water. If you're stressed out, your body is going to retain water.

Second, when you under-eat, there are some metabolic adaptations happening. When you under-eat, this can slow down your metabolism, and this is what I've been trying to stress without saying it until I got to it: your body is trying to conserve energy. That's going to affect how your body processes food, how it processes beverages, how it processes whatever you give it. If you're under-eating on a day, your metabolism will slow down to adapt to what it's got to work with. It's going to try to conserve energy so it can help you perform in anything and everything you're doing that day. So it's going to slow down the processing of food and beverages and hold on to them so the body can use them when it needs to.

So again, metabolic adaptations are happening on the days you under-eat. And when your body is slowing down the processing of food and beverages, that ties into the first answer. That's why the weight is going up even though you under-ate. And then the water retention: like in answer number one, if you've under-eaten, it's causing your body stress, so your body's holding on to water. That's why you're seeing a spike and fluctuations on the scale daily.

Another one: let's touch back on glycogen stores. Say you under-eat, but you consume a higher ratio of carbohydrates when you do eat. Let's say you're lower on your protein, lower on your fats, but you consume a heck of a lot of carbohydrates. Your body is still going to store glycogen and water, which is going to affect the scale weight you're seeing. As I mentioned in answer number one, when you eat a higher amount of carbohydrates, your body stores glycogen, and glycogen binds to water. The more carbohydrates you eat, the more that process expands. More carbohydrates, more glycogen stored, more water held on to, and this is going to cause fluctuations. So you could under-eat your other macronutrients but overeat your carbohydrates, and that may be what's causing a higher scale weight the next day.

Think about it like this. You under-eat protein, but you have a piece of pizza with your family and some ice cream afterwards. You step on the scale the next day and you're like, how the heck is it going up? All I had was some pizza and some ice cream. I didn't eat anything else that day. Well, this is what's happening internally in your body. The carbs are being stored as glycogen, the glycogen is holding on to water, your body's retaining water, and that's reflected in the number you're seeing on the scale.

The last one I want to touch on relates back to the time of day you're eating. Let's say you don't eat. This is something that actually happened to me at the beginning of my journey. I wouldn't eat all throughout the day, and then I would have this big-ass freaking dinner because I was starving and needed to eat something. And it would be smack dab at the end of my day, late at night. If this is happening, that last meal, whatever it's made up of, whatever you're consuming, can affect what you see on the scale in the morning. Just because you didn't eat all day long, and then all of a sudden you have this big meal at the end of the day, it's not fully processed or digested overnight. So it's going to affect the number you see on the scale.

So just because you under-ate doesn't mean the scale will go down. All in all, the overall message of this entire podcast today is that your body is a machine. Think about it like that. Literally, our bodies are machines. There are incredible processes happening down to the cellular level inside the human body. It's sometimes very hard to grasp, but the way these things internally work, get into alignment and give you the results you want comes down to the energy your body is given on a daily basis. Where do you think that energy is coming from? It's coming from the food you give your body, along with many other things. But food, nutrition, is king here.

When you keep your body on a normal cadence with food, and the macros and calories you're giving it, it's all going to work in synergy. And you're going to start seeing the numbers go down, or the progress pictures change, or the results happen in your body composition. Your skin's getting tighter. Your skin's getting clearer. Your mood's elevating. All of this is because you're giving your body what it needs and wants. But if you're throwing it out of regulation with what I've touched on today, the glycogen stores, the digestion timing, the time of day you're eating, the water retention, the metabolic adaptations, the physical activity you're doing on a regular basis, if all of these are out of whack or not happening consistently, you will see fluctuations no matter what. OK?

So to conclude the podcast, I hope this helped you. I know I talk really fast. One, I'm really passionate about this stuff. And two, I get really excited talking about something I know is going to help you see things in a different light. My excitement comes through on the podcast because I know the scale is such a factor for everybody listening. Whichever of those three levels I shared at the beginning you're at, it affects you in some way or another. So let's actually get down to the science of what's happening internally in our bodies, so you can fully understand what's happening when you see the number, which is just a number, fluctuate on a daily basis. And know that it's completely normal, and it doesn't necessarily reflect changes in your body fat.

Consider weighing yourself at whatever frequency fits best with where you're at in your relationship with the scale. And when you do weigh yourself, make sure you're weighing at the same time, under the same conditions, like first thing in the morning. And no matter what, focus on all of the other forms of measurement you can use to track your progress: your body fat, pictures, measurements, how you feel, non-scale victories, your strength, mood, sleep. All of these things are so much more impactful to the story you're building for yourself than that freaking scale.

That one number is attributed to everything. It's your body weight. It's your muscle mass. It's the water in your body. It's your bones. It's your organs. That's what that one number is telling you. So don't let it be the only thing you rely on along your journey, you guys.

I hope this podcast helped you. I hope those two answers to those commonly asked questions helped you. I hope you learned something and some light bulbs went off. All right, I love you guys, and I will see you in the next one. Peace out.

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