Remember I'm still new at losing weight AGAIN so I get frustrated easily.

I started my journey on 3/2/11 at 235 pounds. By 3/9 I was 229. I thought WOW this is great!!!! If I can lose 6 pounds a week it won't take me that long to lose 100! Well I didn't weigh again until today because I want Fridays to be my weigh in now cause weekends can be rough. I get on the scale and it says 226 this morning. That's 3 pounds in 9 days. Now I'm thinking that first 6 pounds was a fluke. Don't bet me wrong. I'm thrilled I'm down 9 pounds since 3/2 yet there is that little demon voice in my head that keeps saying "I've not eaten more than what I should have and have done so well and eaten so little compared to before that I should have lost 30 pounds by now!" Again I'm happy with the weight lost but I swear I AM MY WORST ENEMY.

hahaha yeah i totally feel that, not quite 30 for a few weeks but a couple more each week so 30 or more over all especially since im about 31 to onederland, i def feel i should be there already

either way im happy with the 65 ive already lost and know that if i keep at it i'll be there before i know it

I wish our bodies lost the same amount of weight each week ~ it would be soooo easy then, wouldn't it?!

If you dropped that much when you first started, then it was probably a lot of water weight and your body is now starting to catch up and lose fat. Don't get down on yourself. Any loss is better than a gain!

This kind of thinking got me up to 235 pounds! It did! I discovered weighing daily and it stopped that thinking. My problem with weekly weigh ins is that I dream up idealistic should-be weight losses. I sweated enough this week to lose 8 pounds! Or I ate so clean, I know I'm going to lose 5 pounds. When I'd see 1 pound or, heaven forbid, no loss or even a gain that was cause to call it quits and gain everything back.

Unfortunately, weight loss is not linear and for me it rarely reflects what I am doing as long as I am 100% on plan. The days I increase exercise, I gain. The weeks I eat clean, honestly the first week I usually drop, but the second week of clean eating generally results in a stall. You can gain weight from one day to the next just by retaining water, and lots of it. I gained two pounds from yesterday to today, and I'm pretty sure it was the salt from the pre-seasoned turkey I had for dinner.

Your first week's huge loss was fantastic, but it was largely water weight you dropped. The following three pounds is totally normal and pretty much right on target because now the water is gone and your body is starting to say, "Hold on, wait a minute here, what are you doing to me?"

This is the time to pull in the reigns, form a solid plan and resolve to stick to it no matter what that scale does!

I couldn't have said it better myself. I am also a very impatient loser, and it always gets me into trouble. That's why 3 weeks ago, thanks to Pacifica Bee and Eliana, I made a 1 year commitment to stay on plan. No matter what the scale says, no matter how I feel about it, I will stay on plan for 365 days IN A ROW! With this commitment, no matter what the scale says, I will continue on my path and eventually all my hard work with catch up with me via the scale.

The key is to use the scale a 1 measure of how you are doing, not the only measure. Losing weight is a very complicated scientific process and everyone is different. There are so many variables to consider. Calorie count, exercise, fiber, water, salt, fat, carbs. And let's not even get started with possible hormonal issues.

So please don't get frustrated. Decide on your plan, then execute it daily and eventually you'll get results at your body's pace.

Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I was able to stick to my plan by NOT weighing for the first 72 days. I knew from previous attempts that I would be disappointed with the numbers compared to the TREMENDOUS (at least that's what it felt like) effort I was putting in. So when my first weigh-in more than 10 weeks after I started "only" showed a 12 lb. loss, I was still pretty pleased with the result and had already proved to myself that sticking to plan worked.

But if I'd seen the 1 lb./week as I went along despite my big starting weight, I would have been pretty discouraged.

If I could make one suggestion to 3FC it would be to add a "like" button.

Yeah for a 365 day commitment!!

It helps me to visualize the weight. By volume, 9 lbs is around a gallon of pure fat. It's 36 sticks of butter. If I handed you a nine pound weight and told you to carry it every minute of the day, it wouldn't seem that heavy at first, but within an hour, you'd be complaining, and by lunch you'd say it was impossible, you needed a break.

Nine pounds may not sound like much, and spread out all over your body it might not be very noticeable, but there is a LOT less fat on you than there was.

ETA: It's more than a gallon of fat. A gallon of water weighs 8 lbs and fat is less dense than water.

That's the problem with starting on a weightloss plan... the first week sets unusually high expectations... "Wow, I lost 10 lbs!" ...and then the following week or two is a complete stall out, or worse, a gain. Builds up a ton of frustration.

Patience is your ally, trust me. I've never even reached an average loss of 1 lb a week. I inch along like a lazy turtle. But I lost 50 lbs the first year and 30 the second. I'm a completely different person now, and I'm never going back.

So don't throw that towel in. You can do this! If you survive the first month, you'll survive the diet.

I've been enjoying this thread because I have sabotaged myself SO MANY times when I was disappointed by not losing enough... even from day-to-day! I know it's crazy but I obsess!

This is a very interesting idea! I wonder if I would see more results if I just took a breath and stepped away from the scale for even 2-3 weeks. I think I would be more dedicated and also torture myself less when I don't come up with the right number on the scale. I wish I had the courage to do that... I might try it.

I totally relate to this too. I can't count the times I've given up after only a few weeks, thinking I should have magically lost 30 lb. in that length of time.

I really think that many of my own unrealistic expectations came from the fact that ten years ago I could drop weight effortlessly. I honestly thought like an addict in denial, " I can drop this weight whenever I want so I'm going to eat this large Blizzard and enjoy it ". Fast forward to now - umm...

The Biggest Loser didn't help in my quest for healthy weight management. Forget the fact that they work out a thousand hours a day; so and so lost 16 lbs. this week, and darn it I should have too!

I am hoping that my internal spoiled brat has left this building.

I understand your frustration like many others here. I decided when I recommitted at the beginning of this month that I was going to stay off the scale for the whole month. I know that the first week I probably dropped a big number, the second week a smaller number, the next few weeks my numbers will vary. But when I weigh myself on April 1st, I'll just have the big picture for the month and I wont be stressing along the way over what the scale says. It's probably one of the best decisions I've made. I'm not obsessing over what I'm going to see at my weekly weighin the way I always have before. I'm just focused on eating right and getting my exercise in.

It does help some people to weigh everyday and understand the daily fluctuations. But I'm not one of them. =) That drives me crazy.

Yeah, I can definitely empathize. I've adhered to my plan since late October/early Novemberish and I've lost--wait for it--under 30 pounds! Hoo-freakin'-ray, right?

But actually, it IS a reason to say hooray. Thirty pounds gone means I get to walk two miles in the park each day without struggle. I get to do my regular housework without back pain. I get to feel good about the way I look. Thirty pounds matters WAY more than I thought it would and in far more areas of my life than I would've suspected.

The way I see it, I can lose weight more quickly and get frustrated at eating unsatisfying meals or I can enjoy a tasty, but healthy diet and get frustrated at slow weight loss. I've already experienced the former many, many times; it's time to try the latter, eat well, and live with slower losses.

What helps me with my frustration at my (to me) slow weight loss is focusing on the stuff I'm gaining--my energy, my good looks, my strength, my health--rather than solely paying attention to losing. Yeah, it DOES feel like my body ought to repay all this effort with bigger losses, but it's not going to--so instead I'll look at the other things I'm gaining. It's kind of a bait and switch, but it reduces some of my frustration.

Nola brings up a really good point. You don't have to get to goal to feel absolutely amazing. I have been feeling "at goal" these past 40 pounds. In other words, I dare say these last 40 pounds have actually been vanity pounds because all my mobility had returned, I felt really good about myself, and I felt normal in public. Pretty darn amazing.

We're taught to be. Every one of us. We don't know what reasonable weight loss is, and shows like The Biggest Loser are only making it worse.

When I'd only lost about 40 lbs, or so I griped to my doctor that I was only losing 1 lb per month and that I "should be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week like normal people."

My doctor set me straight saying it isn't normal to lose 2 lbs a week. It's "normal" to give up and gain it all back and then some.

We're taught to see failure where there is actually awesome success. Losing 2 lbs a month is awesome, but you won't ever see a magazine cover proclaiming "lose 2 lbs a month." Even if you only have 5 lbs to lose, 2 lbs a month seems lame and pitiful (even though 90% of the people who want to lose weight aren't losing nearly that much).

You can choose to see failure, because it's what "everyone else does" or you can choose to see success.

If losing less than 2 lbs per week is failure, then I've "failed" off every one of my 88 lbs.

Frustration is only possible when expectations do not meet results. We act as if frustration is unavoidable, but it isn't. You can easily avoid frustration, just by changing your expectations. You can choose to lower your expectations, or you can even choose to have no expectations.

For the first 40 lbs, I had no expectations of weight loss, whatsover. My doctor had prescribed a low-carb diet (warning me not to go too low, but admitting he had no idea how low that was). I didn't put much effort in at all. I almost was daring myself to fail. I made small changes, only those I thought I could commit to whether or not any weight loss at all resulted.

The weight loss was like a free bonus.

Weight loss isn't a behavior - it's a consequence of behavior. You only have control over behavior, not it's results.

This is important, because if you're following a plan that doesn't yield the results you want, you're going to feel like you've failed, even if you've successfully followed your plan. You only have control over what you have control over, so make your success contingent upon what you have control over. You can tweak your plan to improve the likelihood of getting the result you want, but you still only have control over what you have control over.

I've learned that I can focus on my plan, and let the weight take care of itself. Making weight loss about meeting a weekly goal, always drives me batty. I end up seeing more failure than success (and when you see more failure than success, eventually you feel like a failure and give up).

Focus on your food and exercise plan. If you've stayed on plan, you've succeeded (even if no weight loss resulted). If after a month on plan, you've not lost weight or think you can do better, then adjust your plan, but remember that if you've stayed on plan, you've succeeded. If you've lost anything, you've succeeded. If you've maintained a weight loss (even of 1 lb) you've succeeded.

So many of us think we're nearly in "last place" having no clue that we're actually doing far better than 90% of dieters. We think we're failing, when we're succeeding faster and better than most people, but because we compare ourselves to someone on The Biggest Loser (where a week isn't always a week, and their weight loss strategies are often dangerous), we think we're wimpy failures.

See the success. Seeing success makes the process so much more enjoyable.