Hair shed is now a metric in my tracker

I went down this rabbit hole in the old “shed or seasonal?” thread and kept a photo log in the same app as my measurements. What helped was separating wash-day counts from non-wash days, because my wash-day number tripled while my weekly total barely moved.

I also added a stress/sleep note, and my shed peak lagged my biggest loss stretch by about 8–10 weeks. Did you start the tally when the scale flattened, or was it already noisy before that?

Curious if your protein/sleep rows are flat too, since those are the two I actually watch when my tracker starts spawning new columns.

Budget dorm data nerd here: I added a “protein per dollar” column to my tracker, and the only weeks my shower sounds like a shedding golden retriever are the ones where I live on ramen and coffee. Greek yogurt cups from the dining hall, canned tuna, and eggs are my cheap fixes.

Weirdly, my shed got louder when my weight stalled too, like my body was all, “we’re not losing, but we are redecorating.” Did yours start around a calorie drop or just randomly? Also, is it more noticeable at your temples or all over?

Trying to decde if I should care or just buy a drain snake.

For what it's worth, ugh, same club. The plateau + drain report combo made me irrationally angry at my own bathroom. One thing that helped: I stopped trusting strands per wash and switched to a weekly tally, because my wash frequency changed when I got busy. My “worst” shed washes were just 4-day gaps.

Curious if anyone has found a decent breakdown of the timeline—telogen effluvium usually lags the trigger by around 2–3 months, so at month five the shed could reflect something from month two/three (rapid loss, low intake, illness) rather than the current rate. That mismatch is why your flattening weight curve and louder shed don’t necessarily contradict each other.

I track wash-day shed on a note card and also mark calories, protein, and any sick days, because my spike lined up with a crash-diet stretch, not the scale itself. Did yours start closer to month two or three?

And has anyone seen real data separating weight-loss-related shedding from the med itself?

Shower counts are so noisy. I switched to a monthly ponytail circumference (same spot, same tension) plus a rough shed score, and it lined up better than daily strands.

One sharp question: did your shed start 2–3 months after your steepest weekly loss, not during it? That lag is the thing I’d want to rule out before blaming the med itself vs. the deficit/rapid-loss phase.

If you have weekly weights, maybe overlay shed against rate of change, not the flat curve. My own spike came after a fast stretch, then eased as loss slowed—though n=1 and I’m still side-eyeing it.

I’d split the drain tally by wash frequency. My shed count looked horrifying until I realized I was washing every 4 days instead of daily, so it was just the same loss exiting in one sitting.

I log “strands per wash ÷ days since last wash” and a 7-day rolling average; the trend line is way calmer than the raw shower number. Still noise, not a verdict. Have you tried noting whether your shed clusters around wash days versus just combing/brushing?

That’s the one thing that kept me from spiraling when my tracker got dramatic.

I did the same and found absolute weight was the wrong axis. I plot strands per wash against 7-day rolling rate of loss, shifted 8–10 weeks.

Mine peaked when the scale was flat but I’d spent the prior two months in a steeper cumulative deficit. Felt smug; trendline humbled me.

Also started counting only strands >5 cm, because shorter pieces are usually breakage from brushing/dry shampoo, not shed. Are you logging length or just totals?

If totals, your drain report might be mixing two different signals.

This is such a sensible way to file it—side effect, not vanity. One tracking tweak that helped me was separating wash-day shed from comb-day shed, then looking only at the weekly average; my wash-day numbers were always the noisy outlier.

I also note sleep and stress that same week, because my shed seems to lag a few weeks behind a rough patch rather than match the scale. Sharp follow-up: does yours cluster after particular weeks, or is it fairly steady across the month?

Honestly, i do a rough count too, but I split it: pre-shower brush vs wash vs dry. My pre-shower brush count is the only one that tracks with stress/sleep; wash count is just chaos because of how I detangle.

Weirdly, my shed got worse right as my weight flattened, like the hair was on a two-month delay from the fast-loss phase. Did yours lag the scale, or hit at the same time?

Also: are you counting dry or wet? Wet clumps make me think I’m balding, then dry it’s like 12 strands.