Why Black Women Need to Weigh Themselves Every Day

Heart failure can progress slowly and quietly. To manage the condition, you must monitor your body carefully to know when something is wrong. One of the areas you have to pay attention to is your weight in the form of daily weight checks. This information can reveal whether or not your heart is in trouble. What The Daily Weight Checks Accomplish It’s common for people’s weight to fluctuate day to day. It’s also natural to gain weight over time. However, if you’re living with heart failure, significant weight gain could signal that you’re retaining excess fluid. This fluid retention is an early indication that your heart failure is getting worse. While retaining fluid can cause swelling in your stomach and extremities, this isn’t the same for everyone. The swelling also might not happen until your condition has progressed to a more severe stage. How To Weigh Yourself Before starting your daily weight checks, you need to ask your doctor for your dry weight. Your dry weight is what you weigh without excess fluids. This is the weight that you’ll compare your daily number to. It’s best to weigh yourself first thing in the morning after using the bathroom but before...