In bodybuilding, keeping tabs on your progress is very important. You should be following your strength gains, your size gains with a tape, taking body fat measurements with callipers, and also weighing yourself – once a week.
Have you ever noticed, though, something strange which happens with your weight throughout the day? It changes like crazy. Try weighing yourself when you first wake up, and as the day progresses you could end up weighing 4lb or more than you did in the morning.
Obviously, nobody puts on 4lb of fat in a day – let alone in a few hours. What is going on are several things: first of all, stomach and bowel contents go up as you eat, and as does your general hydration as you drink. Second of all – particularly on days you’ve just worked out – your muscles are starved of glycogen, so the muscles become hyper-saturated in glycogen after a hard workout as the muscles take in all they can to help them heal, also adding to your weight.
The number one rule of bodybuilding is always consistency. Measure yourself with the tape before a workout, on the same day each week (I do Monday morning before my workout. This way, I get an accurate measurement without a pump.) And the same applies to weighing yourself – always do so the first thing in the morning, naked, before drinking or eating a thing (but always after urinating and emptying your bowels.)
In doing so, you’ll soon begin to see true weight gain or weight loss being made, and not just the hourly fluctuations that occur due to various bodily processes.