Deception of Scale/Scale of Deception--Think Again!

(No Triggering Material Here--if I'm wrong, please let me know)

Weighing myself has never been a big part of my 'eating disorder', as it is for many, perhaps because there wasn't a scale in the house growing up and they always seemed scary and masochistic to me. There have been years I didn't own a scale and years I had one but seldom used it. Getting on once every couple weeks was more my m.o.

Since I got home, however, which has now been two whole weeks, I've been doing some science.

I've been weighing myself every morning. No matter what.
Any time I've felt trepidatious about it, I've reminded myself, Science! I've also paid attention to what time I got on the scale, whether first thing or after I'd been up a couple hours (always pretty early and before breakfast). I don't intend to weigh every single day forever after, and my naturopath doesn't want me to either. But this has been a pretty eye-opening experiment.

You Guys...I'll never believe you again if you say "I lost a pound!" "I gained a pound overnight!" 
Listen: over the past two weeks, there have only been two consecutive days that my weight has been identical. Between every other pair of days there's been a change of anything up to almost three pounds.
Listen: the total range has been five pounds! Even the most scaredy part of myself is not going to believe that I gained and lost and gained and lost that much.
Listen: the obvious anxiety for my doctors is that I'll start analyzing and ruling out the foods preceding a higher number. But per my very casual observation, there have been days I ate more and the number was lower the next day, and vice versa, as well as the excretion factor not playing in nearly as much as I would have guessed.
Listen: It happened twice that I weighed myself, sat around writing for an hour, got back on the scale again, and was two pounds lighter! Where did it go? 

Now obviously, people do lose weight and do gain weight--otherwise I wouldn't have had to leave this summer, and wouldn't have gotten to come back either. And I'm all the more baffled that before I went away, my weight would be exactly the same one Monday and the next, and would then change abruptly by a lot the next time, then stay there a couple weeks, except who knows what fluctuations would have happened all the days in between. Had I been weighing every day it probably wouldn't have looked nearly so clear-cut. 

My adrenal issues may lead to slightly greater fluctuation than average. But the 'being a woman' issue leads to its being quite normal for weight to fluctuate significantly (whether or not you have a menstrual cycle, apparently).

And of course, I've left out the obvious: the scale is not infallible.

So, don't panic, don't necessarily believe the first thing you see; ask yourself how much is you and how much is just contents for which you are being the vessel.