Just realized how my cycle affects my weight, duh 😂
Hi all, 43yo W, I've been tracking my weight for weight loss purposes on my own for a while, but decided to post here just in case my experience can help someone.
I have been diligently tracking my weight daily since March 1st, so about 4 months now. I'm trying to keep a daily deficit around 300-500kcal (foods logged), but got frustrated with weight fluctuations, until I realized I should track against my cycle. WHAT A REVELATION, I mean I knew about water retention, hormonal shifts, the whole shebang, but not until I saw it visually did I realize why I often got discouraged.. so basically I realized I could go up about 2,5kg in weight during luteal/late luteal, with no apparent reason (same deficit, same carb levels, etc..) I mean it was probably obvious to most of you already, but the impact, at least for me is massive. here's my graph to show what I mean (the red is period, blue is ovulation, for ref.).
So now I know not to compare apples and oranges, obviously if I weigh say day 12 just before ovulation, then again a week later, with same efforts (food, exercise) I'll still be about 1,5kg heavier ! so easy to get discouraged if you don't know this is actually normal...
Can't highlight enough the importance of actual data for me, I find it absolutely central to my weight management system. just having these daily weight and food logs and analyzing them visually has made a world of difference.