One concrete data point for the thread. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.

One thing that is still open after anders_CPH’s answer:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?

BiostatsBrad said:

One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number.

I do not accept the framing. The question has been narrowed to the version that has a tidy answer, and the part that was dropped is the part the OP actually asked about.

Worth separating that from training through weight loss, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

BiostatsBrad said:

One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number.

Agreed, and one caution: a single measurement is not a measurement. Anything that moves day to day needs a trend before it means anything at all.

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update: I got the sleep and the intake sorted before deciding it was the drug, and most of the flatness went with them. Not all of it, and I am watching the rest.