root causes

My weight has been bugging me the last few days.

Don't get me wrong--the scale has been kind. I had 179 on Thursday, 179.5 this morning. The problem I have is that I want to find out what's causing my Wednesday weigh-ins to be high. I mean, there's no way that I really dropped 2 lbs overnight, so there's got to be something that I'm doing wrong on Monday or Tuesday that's causing the scale to stick on 181 on Wednesdays.

I've been mulling it over since yesterday morning, and I think I've got it narrowed down to two possibilities:

1. The sculpting class on Tuesday. I'm usually sore the day after, and it makes sense that my muscles would retain water after strength training. Evidence: I did the class last night also, and gained a 1/2 lb. today.

2. Eating after 7 pm the night before. I generally weigh between 6 and 8 am (maybe several times depending on how the number agrees with me). If I eat dinner at 8 pm the night before, that's (at most) 12 hours for the food to be processed. Maybe that's not enough time. Not to mention that dinner is a pretty big meal for me, and I probably shouldn't be immediately following it up with 6-8 hours of sleep. Evidence: I ate at 8:15 last night, and woke up half a lb. heavier today than yesterday.

My methods are highly unscientific, but my research leans toward one of these two things. Since I don't want to give up the sculpting class, I'm going to start eating dinner earlier on Tuesdays. In all honesty, I think that is the more likely culprit anyway.

I always find that after a tough workout I will gain about 1/2 pound of water the next day - my body repairing itself. Don't let it discourage you - replacing muscle with fat can only be good!