This happened to me yesterday too! Last night I was 1.5lbs lighter than in the morning, (even tho I'd drank much more water than usual) and this morning I'd put on 0.5lbs! I blame the scale... I managed to 'lose' 7lbs in the space of 5min with repeated measurements, I'm a physicist so I need to take the average to minimise errors haha.

To irishmum: That could make sense as you're burning calories during the day. Do you usually go to the bathroom prior to getting on the scale? How long after eating/drinking do you wait at night to weight yourself and is it after your last food/drink?

To sweetigem: Sounds like you are ready for a new scale. I have a digital that reads spot on every reading. If you have to average readings with a 3.5lb mean deviation, I would say that you are operating with faulty instrumentation.

hi fred_s See I complained to my mother about this, and after she'd been weighed at the docs, she came back and the scale gave her the same weight... she's done this consistently checking in different rooms and still the same. Only ever seems to happen with me lol (It's a digital scale). Oh well, I think it'll stop me obsessing about my weight, and concentrating on my figure and well being instead  oh the joys of weight 'loss'... now if only I can find a tape measure to tell me what I want to know...

Original Post by fred_s:

To irishmum: That could make sense as you're burning calories during the day. Do you usually go to the bathroom prior to getting on the scale? How long after eating/drinking do you wait at night to weight yourself and is it after your last food/drink?

To sweetigem: Sounds like you are ready for a new scale. I have a digital that reads spot on every reading. If you have to average readings with a 3.5lb mean deviation, I would say that you are operating with faulty instrumentation.

 Hi Fred_s- I always weigh myself just before I go to bed (around 10.30pm), after going to the bathroom. It is usually 4-5hrs after having dinner & I don't usually eat anything after that (sometimes a cup of tea & a low-cal snack around 8.30pm?) and I'm always 4-5lbs heavier than the morning? I'm baffled?! Its not a big deal- just wondering what caused it!

Yes, that occasionally happens to me, typically about two days after I eat the wrong things and put on water weight. I lose a lot of that water weight during that day.

I also typically lose between 3 and 5 lbs. in water weight every time I work out. So I often end up about 3 pounds lighter at night, even after eating and drinking water throughout the day.

I always weigh myself first thing in the morning AFTER i use the bathroom, and with NO clothes on. This is the weight I go by when monitoring my weightloss. I do weigh myself at night and sometimes early evening, but it usually shows a 1-3 lb. increase. I contribute that to the clothes I'm wearing, since I'm already dressed.

I heard that your "true" weight is first thing in the morning. This is what I go by!

And...when you get weighed at the Dr...why don't they take lbs. off for clothes. I also heard that on average...your set of clothes weighs 2 lbs.

Original Post by bluangeleyez:

I always weigh myself first thing in the morning AFTER i use the bathroom, and with NO clothes on. This is the weight I go by when monitoring my weightloss. I do weigh myself at night and sometimes early evening, but it usually shows a 1-3 lb. increase. I contribute that to the clothes I'm wearing, since I'm already dressed.

It's clothes (if you wear them on the scale), water weight, the undigested food in your stomach, etc. There are many reasons we typically weigh more at night.

So why was I lighter?? LOL!

Original Post by irishmum:

So why was I lighter?? LOL!

As I said , it might be because you lost water weight during the day. It isn't unheard of for me to drop a few pounds of water weight in one day and be lighter at night, especially if I consumed an excess of sodium or sugar a couple days before that.

I also sometimes weigh less because I lose a lot of water weight working out. And you can also lose water weight by drinking a lot of water during the day. Your body knows it doesn't need the water it has stored, so it lets it go.

In addition, the body will let go of water weight after muscles have healed from previous workouts. This does not happen to me, personally, probably because I have been working out for so long. I don't gain water weight after a workout. But those who do may find that they lose some of that during a particular day.

The point is that you don't just lose water weight overnight. You can lose it throughout the day as well—sometimes enough of it to weigh less at night.

And finally, well, some people do lose quite a bit after a bowel movement. I am not one of those people, but I have seen people here mention that they can lose as much as 2 lbs.

The above assumes, of course, that in the morning you weighed yourself before you ate, and at night you weighed yourself while there was still food in your stomach. If you were to weigh yourself after eating breakfast, and then late enough in the evening that your stomach was relatively empty, that would contribute to the phenomenon you experienced, too. But I'm guessing you did the same thing you do every night, so I'm going with a loss of water weight (possibly combined with activity in the bowel) as the answer.

I can make my weight vary by almost 3.6 lbs depending on how I stand on my digital scale.  standing in center heavier than on ouside edgoes, putting weight on heels  heavier than putting it on toes.

That's a possibility, too, I imagine.

My digital scale is actually ridiculously accurate. No matter how I stand on it, it tells me the same thing. And I can step on and off 20 times and have it tell me the exact same thing. If I grab something and hold it, the number changes; and then when I step on by myself, it's back to what it said before. Only over time, as my stomach empties, etc., do the numbers change a bit. And then it remains rock steady on the new number.

Mine is the same way but I fooled with standing on it different ways so I always make sure now that I stand on it the same way every time.  Admittidly one way was standing on the center of it on one foot.  But heels vs toes made a big difference.

yes. figure it like this.. you burn calories all day long.. not to mention, in the case of last night, I was dehydrated... to give you an idea... weigh before and after number 1... you can easily drop a pound!