Weight Question

CMGeiss

All Right, lets get back to the basics. I have a newbie general question. I should have paid more attention in school but that's another story.

Why does ones weight change so much from morning to night. For example, today I had a change of 4.5 lbs from morning (pre ride) to night (1 Hour before bed)

Also, is there a better time of the day to get a more accurate weight. (besides never using a scale)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Eden

It's hard to say because of when you weighed yourself, but sharp drops like that usually indicate that you aren't hydrating enough. If you weigh your self before a ride and then afterwards if you've had enough to drink during the ride you shoudn't lose much if any weight.

alfeng

Garbage in, garbage out ...

Even if you don't eat/drink AND don't participage in any obvious bodily functions, your breathing will reduce your weight because respiration expels water vapor.

TrailRider

First of all, in which direction is your weight change? Gain or loss? If the former, you're eating/drinking too much. If the latter, you're not drinking enough. Best time to weight in, IMO, is first thing in the AM after your visit to the commode. It's consistent, an easy time to remember, and you're probably wearing (next to) nothing so it's easy to get a naked weight.

daveryanwyoming

As other's have pointed out, it's mostly water weight as well as weight of food in your digestive track. It's virtually impossible to gain or loose 4.5 pounds of actual muscle or fat weight in 8 or 9 hours. A very hard 8 hour ride might burn 8000 to 9000 calories or just over 2 pounds and a typical century ride might burn a pound and a half. Similarly you'd have to ingest nearly 16000 calories beyond what you burned during that day to gain 4.5 pounds. Pick a time of day as others suggest to weigh yourself and you shouldn't see so much variation. I still see some from day to day based on how hard I've ridden and how well I've rehydrated the day before so I always look at average weights over several days.

-Dave