I'm just getting started on a focused diet plan, after kind of half-heartedly dieting for a while. I've read all these warnings and such about how a lot of what you lose is just water weight. Is there any way to tell when you're not just losing water weight anymore, and you're finally losing actual fat??

I don't know but carrying excess water is something we don't need either; to a degree weight is weight, as far as our joints and the fitting of clothes are concerned.
Good luck with your diet ~ which one are you most drawn to?

Thanks, Rosinante! I'm mainly doing a calorie counting diet using weight tracking tools from The Hacker's Diet. I'm asking this mainly because the weight registering on my scale is 5 pounds lighter than it was a week ago, and I don't want to get too excited about it if it's not really a big deal...but I'm not going to lie, I'm a little excited!

I used to work out a lot, and after seeing that do absolutely nothing for my weight, I stopped. I hope this time around will do the trick!

That is interesting... I consider myself a professional dieter. I have never let the idea of water vs fat weight loss bother me. Five pounds is five pounds be it water, or fat! Less stress on your joints, etc. etc. Be excited! Unless you were retaining water and bloated, its probably a good bit of fat that you lost.

Keep it up! That is a great start, and I bet you will see a good slow sustainable loss as you continue.

Thanks, Ellen! It's definitely true that weight loss is weight loss, so I'll take it Now that I think about it, a lot of the weight I lost may be from being bloated...I happened to start dieting right before my TOM. But at the same time, it's been a while since I have been below 150, TOM or not, so something's going on!