Well, I just ran into a bizarre dilemma, haha. I am doing both a 4-week November Challenge and the 6-month Transformer on here, both of which I'm stoked about. However, the weigh-ins were three days apart and I want to write just to help everyone else LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES :)
I weighed in initially for the 4-week challenge on my parents' scale, not mine. It was also in the morning. I submitted my weight, no problem. So, you can imagine my surprise when I went to weigh-in for the Transformer on my own scale three days later (in the afternoon) and was a whopping 6 pounds "heavier." I am no rookie to weight-loss but I just blanked out and didn't take in some very important factors, so don't make my same mistake, and keep some things in mind:
Scales can lose the fine-tuning in their calibration, especially over time. Also, various quality scales may be more or less accurate. This is not a huge issue as long as you are using the same scale consistently, because what we're tracking is the difference between the first and last numbers. Make sure you do your "official" weigh-ins using the same scale if at ALL possible. Go out of your way if necessary-- to save your sanity.
Pay attention to your body's rhythms. Many people weigh "light" in the morning before they have eaten or drunk for the day, or after they have lost a lot of sweat from working out. Weigh consistently in terms of time-of-day and even day-of-the-week for most accurate results.
Similarly, LADIES-- we all know the lovely hormonal cycles our bodies go through, but sometimes we don't account for them in weight loss. Keep them in mind when tracking so that if you bloat you don't get so discouraged-- but also so that if you weigh at your lowest point in the cycle, you make a mental note and weigh at the same cycle point as often as possible. Otherwise you may be unnecessarily stressed by the (sometimes dramatic) weight fluctuations you see.
So, for now, I am in the bizarre spot of having two very different "initial" weights for my two games, haha. I have lost weight according to one and actually gained it in another. It's just more motivation for me to kick it up a notch, but I wish I had been smarter in the beginning. Lesson learned!