When Is the Best Time to Weigh Yourself?
The best time to weigh yourself is first thing in the morning, after the toilet and before you eat or drink. That’s when there’s least food, drink and waste in your body, so morning weigh-ins compare fairly from day to day. Your weight still moves a little each day, so weigh most days and compare weekly averages, or weigh once a week on the same day. We’d look at the trend over three or four weeks before changing anything.
In brief
- Weigh in the morning, after the toilet and before food or drink.
- Clothes can add about a kilo, so weigh in nothing or the same light clothes.
- Even weighed the same careful way, your weight can move a few hundred grams from one day to the next.
- Pick one day a week and stick to it. In one large study, weight was a little higher early in the week.
Why is the morning the best time to weigh yourself?
You’re usually at your lightest first thing in the morning, because that’s when your body is at its emptiest. You haven’t eaten or drunk anything overnight, and once you’ve been to the toilet, very little food, drink or waste is left inside you.
Later in the day, everything you’ve eaten and drunk adds to the number. A litre of water weighs a kilo. So drinking a litre of water with a meal can push the scale up by over a kilo straight after. Most of that is the food and water itself, and much of it has gone by the next morning.
The toilet matters for the same reason. A 2015 review of studies found a typical person passes about 1.4 litres of wee a day, and around 130 g of poo. Going before you weigh means less of that is counted.
The NHS also suggests the morning. Its weight management guide says to weigh at the same time of day, preferably in the morning.
Evening weigh-ins aren’t wrong. If evenings suit you better, that’s fine, as long as you always weigh at that time. The problem is mixing them, for example comparing a Tuesday morning with a Saturday night.
How long after eating or exercise should you wait?
The simplest answer is to wait until the next morning. After a meal, the food and drink stay in your body for hours, so the scale goes up by roughly what you had.
Exercise works the other way. You lose water as sweat, so the number is usually lower straight after a workout. Sports scientists measure how much someone sweats by weighing them before and after a session. That water comes back once you drink, so weigh before exercise rather than after. Some people find they’re a little heavier the day after a hard session instead. Here’s why that can happen.
What’s the worst time to weigh yourself?
The worst times are straight after you eat, drink or exercise. Different clothes or a different scale can throw the number off too. None of these change your body fat.
| What you did | What it does to the number |
|---|---|
| Ate or drank | Up by roughly what you had |
| Weighed in clothes | Up by about a kilo |
| Weighed straight after a workout | Usually down, from water lost as sweat |
| Weighed on a different scale, or on carpet | Can read differently, even on the same morning |
Clothes are easy to forget about. In a 2013 study of 50 adults, everyday clothes weighed about 0.8 kg for women and 1.2 kg for men, and winter clothes added up to another half a kilo. So weigh in nothing, or in the same light clothes each time.
Your scale and floor matter as well. The NHS guide says to use a firm, level floor for accurate readings, and the same scales in the same place every time.
What’s the best day of the week to weigh yourself?
Any day works, as long as it’s the same day each week.
A 2020 study tracked the home weigh-ins of 1,421 adults who had recently lost weight. On average, their weight was highest from Sunday to Tuesday and lowest on Friday. The difference was small, around a quarter of a kilo for someone weighing 75 kg. So a Monday reading can look worse than a Friday one, even in a good week.
Should you weigh yourself on your period?
You can, but the number may not line up with the rest of the month. Some women weigh a little more around their period, mostly from water. Our guide on why you gain weight before your period explains it.
The fairest comparison is with the same point in your last cycle. For example, compare the week after this period with the week after your last one. If you weigh every day, compare this month’s average with last month’s, and the period bump gets lost in the average.
Everyone’s cycle is different, and some women barely notice a change. If you see a jump around your period, wait a week or so before deciding anything.
Is there such a thing as your true weight?
Not really. Even if you weigh the same careful way every day, your weight changes a little, most likely because of water.
In a 2023 study, one man weighed himself most mornings for over 25 years. He always weighed himself the same careful way. His weight still typically moved by a few hundred grams from one day to the next. Changes that fast are most likely water, because fat can’t come and go so quickly.
So the closest thing to a true weight is your average. The NHS guide suggests weighing every week to every month. If you’re unsure how often suits you, this post on weighing frequency can help.
What does a good weighing routine look like?
- Put the scale on a hard, level floor, and keep it in the same spot.
- Weigh in the morning, after the toilet and before breakfast or a drink.
- Wear nothing, or the same light clothes every time.
- Weigh before exercise, not straight after.
- Choose how often: most days with a weekly average, or once a week on the same day.
- Around your period, compare with the same point in your last cycle.
- Give it three or four weeks of trend before changing what you eat.
If the daily number gets you down, weighing once a week works too. If weighing is starting to affect how you feel about food or your body, the NHS has advice on eating disorders and where to get help. Is it bad to weigh yourself every day? goes into who daily weighing suits best.
Where Ori fits
Ori has a feature called Look Away. You point your phone’s camera at the scale, and Ori logs the number without showing it to you. It works best with a digital scale and is part of Premium. Ori then checks your trend each week and tells you in plain language how things are going. You can try Ori here.
Related reading
- Why does my weight fluctuate so much?
- How often should you actually weigh yourself?
- Is it bad to weigh yourself every day?
- How to weigh yourself without seeing the number
Sources
- NHS England. How to record your weight. NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, 2021.
- Whigham LD, Schoeller DA, Johnson LK, Atkinson RL. Effect of clothing weight on body weight. International Journal of Obesity, 2013.
- Schneditz D, Hofmann P, Krenn S, Waller M, Mussnig S, Hecking M. Day-to-day variability in euvolemic body mass. Renal Failure, 2023.
- Turicchi J, O’Driscoll R, Horgan G, et al. Weekly, seasonal and holiday body weight fluctuation patterns among individuals engaged in a European multi-centre behavioural weight loss maintenance intervention. PLOS ONE, 2020.
- Rose C, Parker A, Jefferson B, Cartmell E. The characterization of feces and urine: a review of the literature to inform advanced treatment technology. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 2015.
- NHS. Eating disorders overview. Page last reviewed 23 January 2024.
- American College of Sports Medicine. Exercise and fluid replacement (position stand). Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2007.
A gentle safety note
Ori supports general wellness. It is not medical care. If you have a history of disordered eating, are pregnant or breastfeeding, take medicines that affect weight or appetite, or have a clinical nutrition need, speak with a qualified healthcare professional before changing your intake or weight goal.
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