Earlier this week, I created an account on PhysicsDiet.com. In case you’re not familiar with PhysicsDiet, it’s a great (and free!) charting tool for tracking your weight loss progress online. I’ve only been using it for a few days, but so far I’m impressed.
One of the major annoyances with tracking your body weight on a regular basis is that they are seemingly random ups and downs that aren’t really reflective of your progress. Given the sheer amount of input and output that we experience on a daily, it’s not surprising that there’s some noise in the system.
The beauty of PhysicsDiet is that it plots both your real data as well as a moving average. The moving average smooths out the daily fluctuations and provides you with a nice curve which is very useful for estimating your “true” weight.
As long as you keep that line trending down, you’re losing weight — even if you have days where your weight blips up or down. When your “blips” above the line, it turns red. Stay below, and it’s green.
Another nice touch is that it provides you with an estimated “daily deficit” (or excess, I presume) of calories based on your recent weight loss progress. These calorie estimates are a powerful motivator (at least to me) as they provide a connection between daily decisions and longer-term progress.
Side note: I’m not posting my graph yet because there’s so little data and not much to see. Once things get rolling I’ll probably post periodic updates.
Get free updates via e-mail!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been weighing myself daily for 4 years now, and every year I make a moving average graph so I can see the trend line.
I use it not so much for goals (I’m happy with my weight and don’t worry about it one way or another) but to let my body tell me when I’m overtraining or getting sick.
If my weight changes quickly over the span of a few days, I know that I’m in need of a little extra rest and act accordingly.
In fact, before I got a digital scale I used to purposefully keep the scale non-zeroed because I didn’t care what my weight was, only how it changed.
I LOVE physicsdiet. When I really wanted to lose a lot of weight, it was such a motivational too for me. It did a great job of evening out my emotions that are associated with a weight loss plan. The highs weren’t so high and the lows weren’t so low…Watching that trend line head downhill is an awesome feeling of accomplishment.
I love physics diet too. I’ve been using it for a few years now and it really helps having a log of my daily weight.