You step on the scale and it says a kilo more than yesterday. Fat does not grow like that: a kilogram of fat takes roughly 7,700 kcal of overeating. So the scale showed you something else.
What the scale really shows
A scale weighs everything at once: fat, muscle, water, the food in your stomach. Over a day the thing that changes most is water.
- A salty dinner holds water — up in the morning.
- A lot of carbohydrate in the evening — up too: muscles store water with it.
- A hard workout — up for a day or two while the muscles recover.
- For women, weight moves noticeably through the cycle.
None of that is fat. Which is why one weigh-in tells you almost nothing.
Look at the line, not the dot
The useful number is the smoothed line: an average over the last days. It does not twitch after one dinner and it shows the direction. If the line goes down and today’s dot is above yesterday’s, everything is fine.
In Kalorika the line draws itself on the analytics screen once there are a few weigh-ins. Next to it you see the pace: how much goes in a week.
How to weigh so the numbers can be compared
- In the morning, after the toilet, before food and water.
- On the same scale, on a hard floor.
- Often. Three or four times a week give you a line; once a week gives you a lottery.
- Log the number you do not like, too. A skipped “bad” day makes the line prettier and less useful.
How long to wait
Two weeks is the minimum for the line to mean anything. Before that any conclusion — “I’m not losing”, “it’s all pointless” — is a conversation with noise. After two or three weeks you can see whether what you do works, and then it makes sense to change something.
When to stop
If weighing ruins your day, or the number will not leave your head, weigh less often or not at all — a food diary works without a scale. And if your weight changes fast for no reason you can name, that is a question for a doctor, not for an app.