Regular Weigh-Ins Enhance Weight Management Goals

Weigh yourself at least once a week if you wish to lose weight, and weighing yourself every day may help you stay on track.  Elina Helander, from Tempere University of Technology (Finland), and colleagues analyzed 2,838 weight measurements (up to a years' worth of weigh-ins) from 40 overweight individuals (with a body mass index of 25 and over) who indicated that weight loss was a personal goal or concern. The researchers found that weight loss was related to how often individuals weighed themselves. Finding that: “Weight loss took place during periods of daily self-weighing, whereas breaks longer than one month posed a risk of weight gain,” the study authors report that: “The findings emphasize that missing data in weight management studies with a weight-monitoring component may be associated with non-adherence to the weight loss programme and an early sign of weight gain.”