How to Best Track Bodyweight?

I am trying to put on some muscle but I guess I am not weighing myself in a consistent way and getting unusual weigh-ins this week. I weigh myself every morning but sometimes before using the restroom, sometimes after. Also having different foods/timing of foods every day (some days low volume food some days high volume food) but caliries still the same

Recently I’ve upped my calories to 3100 ish and I’m surprisingly having lower weigh ins by almost 1-1.5lb compared to most days yesterday.
I want to know the best way to track the weigh-ins stuff so I can focus on consistently gaining about 2lb per month in muscle.

These were my weigh-ins last week:
2900-2950 calories roughly per day
BW(78.3 + 78.3 + 78.1 + 78.4 + 78.4 + 78.4 + 78.4 )/7 = 78.32kg (29 Nov to 5 Dec)

Weigh-ins this week:
3100-350 calories per day roughly since Sunday
(77.9 + 77.6)/2 = 77.75kg, down 0.5kg from last week on average somehow.

How should I best approach calories/weigh-ins to make sure I am doing this right and building muscle? Thanks a lot!
If I’m able to progresisively overload is it generally fine? I am 6 foot and just 78kg (170 lb), so I clearly need to up BW in the long run to actually gain quality muscle

The mirror and progress in the gym. Weigh yourself in the morning after going to the bathroom.

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Consistent weigh in times and conditions help show a more accurate picture of what’s going on. As long as you are taking multiple measurements a week (once a day is good) and then comparing changes weekly averages week to week you will be ok.

Daily temporary weight fluctuations can be massive up to 2kg + and caused by a variety of factors some which you can control and some you can’t. Short term fluctuations don’t really matter tho. Taking weekly, monthly, blockly averages will show you what’s happening.

If you use an app or excel that does this for u it can be really handy

e.g. BW graph below shows an athlete’s BW trending slowly up for a block. A lil over 0.5kg per month

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It seems you are doing it right.
Its just that you can really measure progress week to week. Its more of a month to month. Just keep calculating your weekly averages and then compare them in 2-3 month runs, to see the TREND in which the numbers move or dont. You can have really fucky numbers if you try to look at them week to week, as in - 1 day of eating more calorie dense foods that weight less in total and maybe dehydrating a bit, will basically bring down your whole weeks total.
Look at weeks in the longer run, and also - you can do an average of a whole month and then compare all the months in a year.

As far as muscle being built - the same trend of strenght should be measured. We all can have a shitty day or shitty week so again - its not week to week bases but more like a whole mesocycle or something like that.
Im doing 531 so i have 3 week cycles. Maybe one is shitty, maybe second one is a bit better but then i go by the third one to really see how much have i improved in 9 weeks, for example.

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I’ve only ever weighed myself once a week–same time, same day, after using bathroom. This includes throughout a 16 week contest prep. I only did daily weigh-ins final 3 days to show.

You are making this way too hard on yourself. Judging by all your new posts and posts in your log, this is all you do. You spend more time thinking about diet and training than you actually spend training or cooking. I believe I’ve pulled off some pretty impressive recomps, and I can honestly say I spend at most 5 min per week thinking about how I will alter my macros, cardio, etc. the next week after I weigh-in. This is why a few months ago, I literally offered to write you a customized diet and training plan for free! You wouldn’t have to think about anything, but just putting in the work.

I don’t say this lightly, but I truly believe therapy and guided meditation would serve you well. You seem to be very prone to catastrophic thinking on almost a daily basis and have obsessive-compulsive tendencies with regards to minutia of your training/eating that IFBB pros don’t even worry about. Sadly, it’s been hard to watch your log. It’s full of posters who mean well and give very helpful advice, but I fear they are just enabling your issues by answering every little thought and fear you have every hour of every day.

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Well firstly I would say we are vastly different people who have led different lifestyles, have wildly different genetics (judging by your pics, you’ve got pretty good and long muscle bellies you are probably on the upper end of the spectrum), and I don’t know what exactly your starting point was, how lean you were or what sort of base you had, but it was most probably way better than mine.

I do agree that I very seriously obsesses over stuff, this is not just with gym, gym is a more recent crazy obsession, but I have obsessed over way more things like grades, university, job and I do believe to an extent I have gotten success (and equal frustrations) from that obsession, I feel I can bring it to this shit as well and leave absolutely no stone unturned, I’m doing mostly everything that I think I can in my power, maybe I am trying too much to hyperoptimize but this is just a very deeply ingrained personality trait I have once I get some serious obsession about something.

The thing is that I’m just pissed off because of how I look at 23, I find it absolutely embarrassing and I am wanting to optimize anything possible, work very hard and just stay damn focused. I feel as if I am losing time everyday when I see shit like this and that really frustrates me beyond what I can describe.

You aren’t wrong that “this is all you do.” I literally don’t care about anything else except the main essentials at this point, I don’t care for good food, staying up late, watching films this is what I want and I want it at any cost now. I have spent far too much time in stupid shit, but I can’t disagree that this causes some serious frustration too because God damn I want to gain muscle.

@Voxel, mental health is obviously not great, maybe I am expecting too much out of my own maximum capabilities when i see other guys in the gym, I’m just not happy with where I am and I feel I am making some progress but god damn its slow and anytime i see the mirror I’m just more pissed again.

Stay patient my friend. Natural muscle building is a slow process. It takes time but it’s so worth it! This process is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Just make sure that your lifts keep progressing in the gym. Personally, I always weigh myself in my underwear on Sundays on the same scale after peeing in the morning.

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Thanks man yeah, I’m focused on improving the weights for sure. The main ones being Bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, dips, squat, DL

I guess I am just comparing against other people who are way ahead of me in the game, just need to stay in my lane and keep it going :100:

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what more could someone want

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No kidding. No thoughts. Just do what you’re told and if You adhere to it then reap the easy rewards.

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jskrabac has been around FOREVER. I’m pretty certain he’s put in 15+ years into training. You have no idea where he started, and it’s ridiculous for you to be so presumptive. And it’s also an excuse for being shitty. #realtalk.

You would probably say the same thing about me. Oh, he must have had a great starting point, great genetics, etc. You’d be very wrong. I’m 5’11 and weighed 125-130 lbs when I was 18 years old. At my biggest, I’ve been 215, around 10% bodyfat. I promise that if I can make that sort of change, anyone can. It sounds like you’re coming from the same direction I did, but you’re starting in a MUCH better place. I was severely underfed. At least you’re just ‘regular’ small, lol.

In any event, I will agree that you are overanalyzing everything, and I also agree that those who are catering to answering every little concern you have are enabling. Honestly, the BEST thing you could do for yourself is stop posting entirely, outside of logging. You have more than enough information at your fingertips already, without asking ANY more questions. Just put in the work, my dude. It takes time, but fuck man. You’re young. You’ve got plenty of prime years to build yourself.

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I’d take him up on this in a heartbeat. That’s an incredibly valuable offer. Nobody does that.

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To answer your question.

There is no best anything.

Find a method you will consistently do, the same way, every time. Record the data. Watch the trend.

If there is a consensus, I’d bet it’s to weigh yourself each morning after elimination while nude. Enter weight into MFP.

Want to make it even simpler? Get this scale. $30, bluetooths the data to your phone.

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I only said I didnt know his starting point not that he (or you) hasn’t worked very hard, I don’t discount hard work of anyone. What I will say is that I have very rarely (and this is due to my own stuff) seen people with worse starting points. At least fat people I’ve seen who start have some sort of muscle, I started below the ground lol.

My starting point was also probably not you are thinking, this log is way way after my real starting point which is something like:

Which is basically like you, 5’11" 125lb but with 50-60 lb more fat and 0 more muscle than your starting point.
I do’t know if you were lean or not, but I have never been below 25% body fat in my life probably, I’d much rather start small and lean rather than small and fat. Even to the point I’ve gotten now its taken a lot of time, mistakes and crazy lifestyle changes.

I’m not here coping, coping would be giving up and saying “oh this just sucks I’m not going to put in effort.” I’m doing the exact opposite, with the overanalysis lol.

But again, I’m not here saying I’ll give up, I guess I just need to be patient and keep doing what I’m doing and re-evaluate in 2-3 months.

It’s mental this got overlooked!

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no, you didn’t JUST say that. I quoted you. shall I do it again? You said more than this dude, you followed that with this:

that’s the presumption. You don’t get to pretend you didn’t say things you didn’t say, lol.

I’ve absolutely seen worse than the picture you shared. The fact that you’re standing in that picture means I’ve seen/worked with people worse off. Not everyone starts with even THAT level of mobility. Food for thought.

In any event. We’re all telling you you’re overanalyzing shit and you’re getting way too caught up in things that don’t matter. Your starting point really has nothing to do with that.

you misspelled years.

I really think your expectations, and your understanding of this process are poor. At least in terms of how long things take, or how long they SHOULD take. The fact that you said ‘it’s taken a lot of time’ to get to where you are now is bonkers, and very revealing about your impatience. You’re 23 years old. Literally nothing you’ve done has taken a lot of time, you’re not fucking old enough for that to be a true statement.

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Keyword there is “probably,” and to be completely fair, this is the full context. I’ll admit I said that probably he had a better starting point, seems like you took it as if I said “definitely.” This is what I wrote exactly:

You also made a similar presumption with your 5’11" 125 lb statement without knowing my true starting point, and again I never said nobody who has any form of success haven’t worked very hard.

In any case, my main point from that was that I don’t think I can just wing it so easily (maybe I’m wrong) but in the current state I am, I doubt I can wing not measuring things and not keeping an eye on things.

Maybe my expectations are off yeah, I meant I will re-evaluate if I need some big changes in 2-3 months to ensure continued progress.

@supercardrives I’m sorry your mental health isn’t great, and I understand that you are frustrated. Maybe not just about your body, maybe about a lot of things. I think that the way you’ve communicated the last few posts in this thread is a bit unfortunate, I agree with @flipcollar for calling you on it.

When @jskrabac offered to write you a customized diet and training plan for free he was being exceptionally generous. Why didn’t you take him up on that? If it had happened to me before I was doing other things outside of lifting simultaneously, I would have accepted. Now, it’d be too much to juggle I don’t think I could in good consciousness accept it. Too big of an ask.

But, I’d argue it is even more generous to pay so much attention to what you are posting that he’s identified that you are obsessing about minutiae and urge you to get help with that. That’s caring.

I used to be the same way, maybe still am, but have you considered it might not just be a personality trait? Sure, it is possible to derive success from it, but as you acknowledge yourself there is equal frustration there. Are you sure that is where it will stop? Can it lead to burnout? Or, a mental disorder?

Stress has a tremendous impact on the rate with which our body transforms. I’m just making up numbers as I go here, but I’m going to make the argument that the person doing 6-7/10 things right while experiencing a 0-2/10 on the stress scale will achieve their objective sooner compared to the person doing 9-10/10 things right while experiencing an 8/10 level of stress as a consequence.

And what will happen to you then if you tear a muscle? Or, fall outside and bust up your hip. Putting all your eggs in one basket when it isn’t your livelihood is setting you up for falling into a depression if shit happens.

It was too big of an ask then and still too big of an ask, I appreciated the offer, but I couldn’t accept such a thing no matter what

In any case, this obsessiveness is something I have to figure out be it in gym or out of gym, this isn’t the first time (or last time) it has/will happen.

And therapy and guided meditation weren’t good suggestions?