I'm on week 5 & need help please!

what do you have your goal per week to lose set at? with only 13 lbs to lose, I wouldn't expect more than 0.5 lbs/week. And you've lost 1 lb per week, so I think you're doing really well. Keep it up!

I think I am going to make this into a blog post or something and just stick the URL in forum discussions!

We all experience water weight changes. Sodium, exercise changes, hormones, TOM, all of these things affect water retention.

Water weight changes can be large. 1lb, 2lbs, even 5lbs for some people.

Weight changes due to diet and exercise are small. 0.5lbs here, 1lb there, if you're lucky.

It is hard to see a 0.5lbs of underlying weight loss when your weight shoots up 3lbs because of hormonal changes.

So what can an enterprising person do?

They can record their weight in a program that generates a trend line which shows them what is happening to their weight range over time.

www.weightgrapher.com, www.trendline.com, a good spreadsheet, happy scale on the iphone.

I mean, folks, the choices are: you've eaten 3,500 extra calories per lb you gained, you haven't pooped as much as you should have, you are expecting a baby (and somehow I don't think they grow 2lbs in a single night), you have a medical condition that is causing edema, you have a huge tumor, or MUCH more likely, you ate too much salt, or changed your exercise regime and your poor muscles are hauling in water to fix themselves, or you ate carbs after being on a low carb diet, or you ate at maintenance or slightly beyond after being in a persistent deficit, or, you know, it's that time of the month!

In pretty much most of these cases, this water weight will go away after a few days, after thoroughly spoiling your day today!

So plug the numbers in a program and look at the pretty pictures, instead of being sad and giving up (or feeling frustrated and stressed) because your weight went up 2lbs when in reality you are doing FABULOUSLY WELL!

M'okay y'all?

Pretty pictures: Note THREE periods of NO WEIGHT LOSS in a 5lbs of overall loss month which even includes clear periods of weight gain! And no TOM to contend with either. This is purely from salt, lame levels of exercise, and the fact that we all have a weight range, not a single point weight.