new weight loss goal doesn't start right away

I’ve created my first goal, to lose some weight. Two questions that I can’t find answered elsewhere:

  1. the graph is flat for the first week. I understand that future changes need a one week delay to avoid cheating, but I haven’t started yet. I want to start losing right away.

  2. the slack around the value is tiny. Like an oz or something. My weight varies by 3 or 4lb each day. Feel like I need a wider road, or a moving average?

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For #1, you might come to be happy that you have the safety buffer. You can start losing right away while you’re still getting the hang of Beeminding your weight. If you really want to eliminate the safety buffer you can email support@beeminder.com to get it fixed.

For #2, the road width everywhere is a function of the current slope. So when you get out of the safety buffer period and start having your road slope downward, the width of the road will grow. Unfortunately there is no way to tell just how wide the road will be on a future date.

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All generally true, though weight loss goals are special.

The road width will adjust to accommodate 90% of your daily variation. I also have days where I’m more than a kilogram above or below the previous day’s weigh-in. Eyeballing my withings graph, it looks like each lane of my road is 0.9 kg wide

Also, there’s a guarantee in place for daily-weighers that if you’re in the blue lane or better, tomorrow’s fluctuation won’t derail you. It’s imperfect, but can be useful on occasion.

There’s a moving average plotted on the weight graph, so you can tell whether you’re on a downward trend. If most of your dots are below the average, your mass is decreasing. But there are loads of reasons not to beemind the moving average.

As always, make sure that you have goals that support weight loss.


PS: regarding #1, retro-ratchet can soak up any unwanted safety buffer, though it can be tricky to apply to weight loss goals.

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