I'm fighting the same thing this week. January was by far the most total pounds lost for me in a month since I started, and this first week of February it feels like my body is fighting back! I may actually end up with a gain for the week, which would be my first in a non-vacation week. It's a little puzzling because physically, I'm feeling so good; walking more and better than I have since the start.

I'm just going to keep at it though. It'll go in the right direction again

Since it's not very comforting to say "weight loss isn't linear" I won't say that.
Instead I'll say, ugh, I agree. I try hard to be positive, but sometimes it's a bummer. Sometimes it just sucks to see a higher number. Boo hiss. Super boo hiss. I'm sending you good thoughts and support because it's a drag.

(But, if you are in the mood to read what helps me, give it a gander. It may or may not be helpful. Who am I? )

Ok, so what helps me to move through it is to remember that you're going to have a range, everyday, of what your body can fluctuate. Between digestion, food intake, TOM, sodium, illness, and muscle inflammation (not to mention naked vs clothing) we can be up or down many pounds throughout the day. And because we're bigger it can be more than some other people fluctuate.

Here are 2 examples:

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/weight-fluctuation-experiment

https://vitals.lifehacker.com/what-i-learned-from-weighing-myself-15-times-in-a-day-1795332801

So in general, unless I'm up past my range of around 10 lbs, I try to imagine that it's roughage or hydration. Because if I'm right, excellent, I didn't beat myself up for no reason. And if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter, because being positive and moving forward is way more helpful than imagining it was the nachos you had on Wednesday and lamenting your dumb book club's choice of venue and your weak will and why you didn't exercise and...and... exhausting and who cares. Do better now, maybe don't dwell too long on missed opportunities and take an optimistic rather than pessimistic or punitive stance. And then, days or weeks later when it's shaken out, you will know how small of a deal it really was.

Have a good night, watch Lucifer on Fox, get good sleep, and just take good care of yourself. It's a bummer, but i hope it doesn't stay a bummer. This is a lifelong thing and the less painful you can make the bumps, the better it can feel.

Exercise did that to me when I started going to the gym last month. The scale pretty much stalled up until last week. Then suddenly I lost about 8 lbs in a week. It’s weird how this works. If it helps, you may want to give the scale a break for a few days. I know I lose motivation sometimes when the scale isn’t reflecting my hard work.

Ugh. I hate that! I don't want to say we have it harder, but I think it can be especially frustrating as a lady since we have additional fluctuations to deal with. I'm sure you'll have a big drop soon if you just stay the course!

@CheezWhiz88 That's awesome! I've been struggling the last several weeks with the blahs myself and find myself going off course pretty badly. Yep - it doesn't matter if I have to stumble or crawl, what matters is that I don't give up and keep moving forward.

That's one thing I'm discovering after being in this a year: you are not going to keep the momentum going that you start with and there's going to be good days and weeks and bad days and weeks. It's not going to be steady and there are times when that darn road has potholes big enough to swallow a buffalo, and there are times the going is going to be good and other times when its a crawl and you feel like your stuck in rush hour traffic in LA in the summer

What I'm slowly figuring out is that I've got to learn to be patient and forgiving with myself (easier said than done!), learn when to compromise with myself and when to be firm - sometimes dealing with myself is like dealing with a cranky 2 year old.....Anyway, I'm still moving forward, and it doesn't matter when I finally get to goal - the key is to get there!

Awww, I really wish I could weigh myself at home. At a Dr. visit this week, I weighed 334. So, I recorded that weight. I have a nice scale at home, but, I bought it at a time when I weighed less and was just positive that I would never again get over 330 lbs, it's weight limit. Anyway, my scale gets a little freaky when I weigh in the 320's on it. I like my scale as it's very accurate at weights less than 320. So, I'm going to try and get back below 320, then re-start weighing at home for my official weight.

@amy_kee I know how you feel! I had one of those expensive Withings wireless scales and I think I broke it by going over the weight limit! When I first started trying to lose weight in December it called me 397 and apparently the weight limit is 396. The next time I weighed on it, it was telling me all kinds of crazy things, jumping back and forth between numbers and even fluctuating within 100 lbs!! It said my fiance weighed 86 lbs! I tell myself that it broke because it got wet (which it did get wet!) but I worry that the truth is I crushed it. Anyway, I ended up getting one of those doctor-like scales off amazon to replace it because I don't really trust the digital ones after that.