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In addition to water, if you have been working out lately to speed along your “weight loss” (you mean fat loss, right?) progress you probably have gained some muscle doing so. This gain in muscle can also affect numbers you see on scale. Muscle is also more dense than fat.
You may be wondering how you are going to measure your progress now that scale doesn’t mean as much as it used to. Well, there are several methods to measure your body fat percentage. None of these methods are 100% accurate, but they will be much more useful than use of a scale.
One of simplest ways is to use a caliper. You can usually find these at your local sporting goods/fitness shop. If you can’t find them locally, you can order them off internet. Calipers measure thickness of a skin fold on your triceps. Then there are directions that come with caliper that show you how to use number you get to derive your body fat %.
If you don’t want to go out and buy some calipers, there is a body fat % calculator on my website. The calculator uses circumference of several parts of your body and then plugs them into a formula developed by U.S. Navy to derive an approximation of your body fat %.
You can find this calculator here: http://www.weight-loss-resources.com/calculators/bodyfat.html
There are also much more accurate ways to measure your body fat % like buoyancy testing or use of special lasers.
If you insist on knowing your progress by weight loss and want to use a scale, try to weigh yourself at same time everyday. Probably best time would be right when you wake up in morning and before you do anything.
So, your new goal should be to shoot for fat loss and not weight loss. Don’t necessarily trust scale all time as it can be deceiving - your weight is affected by more than just how much fat you have gained or lost. In addition, it is almost physiologically impossible to gain or lose a pound of fat in one day.
Nathan Latvaitis runs a website at http://www.weight-loss-resources.com where you can find even more fitness/weight loss articles, product reviews, book reviews, calculators, a message board, and more.