Varying levels of weight loss

jennyi27

Hello MFP community!

I am just getting started on my weight loss journey. We are doing a weight loss challenge at work, and I am really hoping to win! I will premise my comments below by saying that I have more than 100lbs to lose...

The first week of our weight loss challenge, I used MFP religiously and went to the gym twice. I didn't do anything extreme. However, I dropped 14.9 pounds. Obviously, I was elated. I actually thought that there was something wrong with the scale. I have done weight loss programs before, but I have NEVER dropped that much weight at once. The next week, I didn't do anything different - I watched my calories and went to the gym twice. I just weighed in, and I only lost a pound. I am not necessarily upset because I still lost weight, and I made it over the 15 pound hump. I knew going into this weigh in that there was no way that I would have lost the same amount of weight, but I was hoping for more than a pound after carefully watching my calories AND having so much excess weight to lose.

I know that most of the weight I lost in week 1 was water weight, but does anyone know why (in general) weight loss can fluctuate so much from one week to the next? It has happened to me in the past, and I found it extremely frustrating.

Feel free to post any advice, or let me know if you have experienced something similar. Also, add me as a friend if you like. :-)

thegreatcanook

That's an incredible loss. Probably a lot of retained water. My weight can swing as much as 4 lbs a day. The important thing is to look at the trends. Compare your weight to that day the week previous. For example, I'm actually up .5 from yesterday but I'm down 1.6 from last Tuesday.

Go ahead and add me if you need a supportive friend.

SisterSueGetsFit

I too, am just starting out. I downloaded an application on my phone called "happy scale." You enter your weight everyday so you can start to see trends. When I compare my "up" weights to my food, I notice the meals I ate tend to have a higher sodium content. It also help with "that time of the month" so you know how your weight fluctuates.

You've already done great, keep it up!

Cieren

It sounds like mostly water weight.

To be honest, I found that weighing in once a week was really frustrating, because I'd work hard all week and then end up focusing on that one number, which may have been taken on a day when I was retaining water or whatever.

So I ignore the generally recommended "weigh in once a week" and weight myself every day - I have a scale that tracks body fat/muscle and so on. This actually lets me ignore my day to day numbers (except to see how what I eat/drink actually affects my body), and pay attention to overall trend which I find to be a LOT more positive.