Is It Normal for Your Weight to Change Daily?

Is it normal for your weight to fluctuate day to day? The answer is yes, absolutely. Let's talk about why.

Why Your Weight Can Change Daily

There are a lot of reasons why your weight can fluctuate day to day. You don't want to get flustered when you see the scale go up one day and down there other—you need to understand what's going on.

1. Hydration Status

One of the first reasons is your hydration status and your electrolyte status. Depending on how much water you consumed one day or how much salt you had one day, that can actually cause fluctuations within your body weight—and it can actually cause you to hold onto more water or to release more water.

For example, if you went out to dinner one night at a Mexican restaurant, you might wake up the next day and see the scale jump up like two pounds, and you're like "What the hell is going on?" That could be because you just consumed a lot more sodium than you're used to. And that can cause the scale to bump up a little bit and cause your body to retain more water. That bump in the scale is just water weight.

2. Food Residue in Your Gut

Another reason why the scale can fluctuate day to day is just because of the amount of food you've eaten. There can be a good amount of food residue in your gut that can change day to day. And this can be determined by what types of foods you ate. For example, if one day you ate a lot of fibrous foods, you could have a lot of food residue just sitting in your gut the next day—and you may not have fully digested that.

And that can actually cause the scale to go up. It's not fat that you're gaining—it's just food residue in your gut.

3. Bowel Movement Frequency

Another reason is your frequency of bowel movements. If you've ever gone, weighed yourself, and then gone to the bathroom, and weighed yourself, again, you could see that you've maybe lost like one to two pounds.

And that's completely normal.

The frequency of bowel movements is going to be something that can cause the scale to fluctuate day to day.

4. Carbohydrate Intake

Another reason why this scale can fluctuate is due to carbohydrate intake. And the reason for this is because we know that when you consume carbohydrates, carbohydrates hold on to water in your body.

Every gram of carbohydrate holds on to about three to four grams of water. If you especially go from not consuming a lot of carbohydrates, and then you consume some carbohydrates, it's not that you gain three pounds of fat overnight—it's that those carbohydrates that you consume the night before are causing your body to hold more water weight

Don't be afraid of the scale. If you consume some carbohydrates, you notice it goes up—it's just water weight. It's not fat gain.

5. Exercise Timing

Another reason why the scale can fluctuate day to day can be determined by whether or not you've worked out or not what type of workout you've done—if you're new to working out. And so I'm going to unpack that a little bit.

A few reasons why your workouts can affect the scale:

If you are like completely new to resistance training, you could actually see the scale go up for the first few weeks because your body is adapting to that new stimulus. It might be holding on to a little bit more water and a little bit more inflammation that could cause the scale to go up.

Sometimes, I know that if I have a leg day and the scale didn't go up the next day, I didn't work hard enough. That's not always the case. But the reason for this is because when you're working out—especially when you're working muscle groups that are large—you're basically breaking down your muscle fibers and creating micro-tears in your muscles. That is going to cause a little bit of inflammation.

If you're new to resistance training or coming back from a layoff, you could just be holding on to a little bit more inflammation—a little bit more water weight—and that can actually cause the scale number to go up.

6. Menstrual Cycle

Another reason why the scale can fluctuate day to day, if you're a female, your menstrual cycle can play a huge role. Hormones are fluctuating throughout the month, and this can cause you to hold on to more water at certain times.

It's very different for everybody. I tend to see for women, there's some research that says that different parts of your cycle water retention is gonna be a little bit higher. During different parts of your cycle, water weight can actually increase and so that can cause the scale to fluctuate a little bit more. And you might see that the scale goes up, or it goes down. And so just paying attention to those trends over time for yourself can be beneficial.

7. Stress and Sleep

Another reason why the scale can fluctuate is due to stress and sleep. If you are super stressed out and not sleeping, we tend to see that our main stress hormone, cortisol, can be elevated. If you have elevated cortisol levels, it can actually cause you to hold on to a little bit more water. If you had a crappy night's sleep, and your cortisol levels are high, you might wake up the next morning and see that scale jump up.

Again, it's super normal for that to happen. It's part of being a human being. If you are using the scale to track your progress, the biggest thing I can tell you and the biggest tip I can give you is just to make sure that you're tracking your weekly average scale weight.

Ignore Daily Fluctuations

Don't pay attention to the daily fluctuations on the scale. Make sure that you're just paying attention to that weekly average or even a bi-weekly average—because that's what matters. When we're looking at the scale, whether it's to lose weight or gain weight, we need to just make sure that we aren't getting too caught up on those daily fluctuations. 

The scale is not the end all be all.

Looking at other metrics such as body tape measurements, progress pictures, how your clothes are fitting, and how you're feeling in general—are super helpful metrics to make sure that you're moving in the right direction.

Because I promise, the daily fluctuations do not matter at all. Pay attention to the weekly averages and the bi-weekly averages if you're going to use the scale. Also, pay attention to other body composition metrics that might even be telling you more of what your body's doing in terms of changing—because I tend to see that tracking body tape measure and tracking progress pictures are going to be really really good determinants of if you're actually losing body fat versus just water weight.

Want to learn more about exercise, nutrition, and weight loss? Check out the resources we have on the podcast and blog that dive deeper into becoming a more badass version of yourself.