So it has been spoken of on here before, but I will reiterate it again: I am a daily weigher. I do this so I can chart exactly how my body responds to food and exercise, as well as things like pregnancy and vacations. And those things - both pregnancy and vacations - have laid themselves out in fine form on the last six months of my chart. Behold!

This is the data from my weights from the middle of December to today. The gray line is the actual data, the red line is the overall adjusted trend of what those numbers actually DID. The flat parts of the line indicate times I was away from the scale for vacations. January and February's flat lines were the trips to California for my Grandmothers' funerals, the long flat portion in April was the trip to Michigan to visit my husband's family and friends.

There is a clear pattern demonstrated by these events - I have a flat line (vacation), followed by high spiking weights (sodium, water retention from travel, stress), and then a gradual downward trend to a stable weight for a few weeks or months until the next vacation, or a slight upward trend when I started gaining some baby weight.

Why I am showing you these charts, or explaining my weight patterns to you?

Well, for starters, a lot of people in the weight loss blogosphere would see such a chart and point out the massive fluctuations, the gains, the returns to normal, the overall NOT loss pattern of it. They would be horrified if this were their personal chart, it looks that bad. The graph doesn't lie, I gained weight overall, even with the corrections after travel.

But that isn't what I see. For starters, this is a pregnancy, and a HEALTHY pregnancy. Yes, I have gained weight, but even with the initial shock of the jagged daily inputs and the condemning upward trail of the bright red line (kind of reminds you of a teacher's grading pen, doesn't it?), we must assess the data as a whole, and that is an exercise is self acceptance, understanding, and knowledge of one's body AND habits. It is a marvelous thing to behold, and EXPLAINABLE!

No gain is unexplained in the journal notes that go along with these weights. There were the trips, dates with my husband, salty soups, any number of workout routines tried, a few mornings of constipation, and any number of normal water weight fluctuations that go along with being a human being.

Then there's the overall trend, which looks pretty bad without the margins, but let's take it in context of the units measured. I went up approximately seven pounds from my low pre-pregnancy weight (210-211) to today (216-217). That was over the course of SIX months. I managed to eat reasonably enough that I have only gained .18 pounds per week. Less than a FIFTH of a pound per WEEK of gestation. The daily calorie excess isn't even accurate, as it cannot account for the fact that I am growing a human being, with all the assorted biological sundry along with it (placenta, amniotic fluid, our son's own rapidly gaining mass). I started this segment of my weight journey, post Christmas holiday season, with a good weight (just barely dipping below 210) and a small bunch of growing and dividing cells. Now I am here, six months heavier, with a two pound, 14 inch baby inside, a slimmer face, fuller bust, rounder hips, and a whole BUCKETFUL more knowledge about myself and my weight loss than I had when I began.

Along the red trend line, what you don't see, is that I have essentially maintained or even LOST excess weight while still keeping a healthy set of habits and a reasonably healthy lifestyle. I have faithfully logged my weight and food and kept up on my healthy habits without ANY real scale payback. God has blessed me with, not only my wonderful unborn son, but a trial period of weight maintenance and habit development that will bless me for the rest of my life. I have LEARNED how to be a maintainer, before the heartbreak and confusion of getting to a goal weight and then having to figure out what is next. Through this chart that is GAINING despite my healthiest habits and efforts, I have learned to make peace with my body and what *I* need to do to both manage my weight AND live my life in balance.

For me, daily weighing has been invaluable, both through pregnancy and before. It has taught me what my body does and why, how I respond to the stimuli and input (food) I experience, how I lose and what is a real issue (the red trend line going up when I am in losing mode) and what is just my body functioning as it should (PMS bloat, excess water weight that will subside, pregnancy gains, etc). I have been able to take random numbers generated from the scale and create data I can USE to understand how I function best, and what I need to do to see the scale go down, up, AND stay fairly even. I have had that entire scope of experience in the past six months, and I am better because of it.

This chart isn't failure, it is empowerment. It has taken power away from the scale and given it to ME, by helping me understand what the numbers mean and what to expect from my routine, instead of me sitting on the scale Monday morning and praying things turn out the way I want them to. With that trend line I can see if my eating genuinely has me headed for a gain and correct it BEFORE the pounds pile on, as much as I can see when I have a sodium spike that is nothing to freak out about. I also have learned how to keep the whole thing in perspective, and that the number on the scale doesn't reflect my worth as a person or EVEN my success as a dieter. Its' going up with the baby has made it necessary for me to divorce habits I KNOW are good from a scale that, without context, would indicate failure. I can be content and healthy without needing the validation of dropping weight. I will NOT yo yo diet and get frustrated by maintenance because my perspective has been shifted to a very different outlook. I have been moved beyond scale dependence, because I know what the numbers do and don't mean.

So for me, I am absolutely proud of the numbers in my sidebar, and proud of this chart. I am not ashamed by the spikes after junk food, vacations, or what have you, and not perplexed over why it went down one week and up another. Daily weight tracking has been absolutely crucial to my success as a dieter, because it has given me the perspective I need to do this for the rest of my life.

Is this something that might be suitable for YOU? We don't all fall pregnant along our weight loss journeys, but daily data gives us more information to work with and a more accurate picture of what our bodies are doing than weekly weights. It might be just the ticket you need to help you move past perpetual diet mode and into the mindset of a maintainer. If you would like to start your own chart, this is one of many resources that can help you do it: The Hacker's Diet Log.

How often do you weigh and what made you choose that frequency?