You need to learn how to measure body weight correctly.
Sounds easy, right?
You might think that measuring your body weight precisely and accurately is easy.
You might think that you just jump on the scale, jump off, and record your measurement any time throughout the day.
It's going to take a little more work than that… because your body weight can change so much during different conditions.
Your body weight will fluctuate over the course of a day. The amount of food in your body, the amount of water in your body, waste products waiting to be eliminated, carbohydrate stores, and other things all affect your body weight…
Even different clothing will affect your body weight too.
Minimize Variance in Body Weight Measurements
We need to do as much as we can to minimize the factors that affect your body weight. Here is a good list of the factors that affect your body weight:
- The accuracy and precision of your scale
- The clothes you are wearing
- The time of day
- The amount of food in your body
- The amount of water in your body
- Size of carbohydrate stores
- The amount of waste products in your body
How do we minimize the factors above so that we get accurate and precise body weight measurements?
You need accurate and precise body weight measurements in order to make good decisions on whether or not to adjust your program during your weekly assessment.
Finally, Accurate Body Weight Every Time You Step on the Scale
Here's how you get an accurate and precise body weight reading each time:
- Purchase a good scale if you don't already have one. Ensure it measures to the nearest tenth of a pound or at least two tenths of a pound.
- Weigh yourself first thing in the morning after using the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself without clothes. This is the only way to measure yourself accurately each time. Ensure you take off jewelry or anything else that adds weight. Clothes can add up to a few pounds at a time to your body weight.
- Your diet the day before you weigh yourself should follow the same pattern every week.
For example, you should not eat low carb one week for that day and high carb the following week for that day.
This ensures your carb stores aren't full one week and empty the next. This can make a few pounds difference in body weight.
If you have a weekly meal plan structured correctly as within the WLC System, your meal types should stay the same the day before your body weight measurement. And you should be able to get very accurate body weight measurements without much variance.
Follow the steps above, and you will measure your body weight accurately and precisely every time. You'll make better decisions and get better results.
We hope you've learned how to measure body weight accurately. Good luck!
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