Weigh Yourself Daily to Lose Weight

Struggling to lose weight? Weighing yourself daily could be the key, suggests a study.

The findings, led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California in the United States, showed that people who do not weigh themselves at all or did rarely were less likely to lose weight than those who weighed themselves often.

Those that weighed themselves six to seven times a week had a significant weight loss (1.7 per cent) in 12 months.

Monitoring your behaviour or body weight may increase your awareness of how changing behaviours can affect weight loss. These findings support the central role of self-monitoring in changing behaviour and increasing success in any attempt to better manage weight, the researchers stated.

The results will be presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2018 in Chicago.

For the study, the team examined the self-weighing patterns of 1,042 adults (78 per cent male, average age 47) and whether there were differences in weight change by these self-weighing patterns over 12 months.

The participants weighed themselves at home as they normally would, without interventions, guidance or weight loss incentives from researchers.

The team identified several categories of self-weighing adults, from those that weighed themselves daily or almost daily to adults who never used at-home scales.

They found that people who never weighed themselves or only weighed once a week did not lose weight in the following year.