I'm following a diet that's monitored by my doctor.
It involves eating 800 to 1,500 calories a day.

If I stay under 1,200 I seem to lose but if I go over, I gain.

I'm sort of combing the calorie counting with volumetrics.

Lots of lettuce, fish, whole grains, vegetables, etc. No bread or anything but brown rice (and I've only eaten that once).

Not using salad dressings either.

I've been sticking to around 1,000 and was doing good but yesterday I ate around 1,300 and this morning it says I gained a pound.

I did go out to dinner with some family two days ago (Tuesday) but stuck to the diet and ate 1,000 calories for the day.
I've heard that sodium can affect you days after you've eaten something high sodium (i'm assuming the restaurant food was). Is that true?

It's just frustrating to be eating really well and see a pound increase.
I've been on the diet for about 2 or 3 weeks and have lost about 12 pounds.
I'm 5'7"/5'8"ish and 292.2 (as of this morning).

Hi! Have you talked to your doctor about this? Since you've only been doing this for about 13 weeks you may want to give it some more time. You've already lost 12 pounds which is awesome! Your body will retain some water if you eat high sodium which can cause the scale to go up. Not sure of your age, but your weight will fluctuate naturally throughout the month as well.

I think anything under 1500 would have you losing weight at this point. I would give it some more time and don't stress over a 1 lb increase. Keep doing what you're doing for a few more weeks and then check your progress. If it is the same or higher than maybe give your doctor a call.

rhanson - congrats on the 12 lbs! That's wonderful to do in 2-3 weeks!

Regarding the sodium - I believe it impacts everyone slightly differently but I can tell you that for me it takes about 2 days for the full effect to show up and another 2 days for it to be gone. My Superbowl eating debacle brought a gain of about 2lbs which showed up on Tuesday. Today I am finally back to where I was on Sunday morning.

Also, check out the seasonings you're using for your meals at home. A lot of them are high in sodium and we don't realize it.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever seen anywhere is that weightloss isn't linear. Having a calorie deficit of 1000 calories in a day won't show up as a quarter lb loss the next day. At least that's true for most of us. It's a cumulative process and sometimes you just have to monitor your own trends to find out what your body responds to the best.

Congrats on your great progress so far! Keep doing the healthy thing and the scale will eventually get with the program.

Thanks guys! I realized I probably added too much sea salt to the tilapia and scallops (didn't realize a teaspoon was 2300 milligrams of sodium!)

Also I realized I'm ovulating or near it (sorry if tmi!) and I've heard women tend to stall around then...? I've read that on here before anyway.

I know that I have to just keep doing like I'm doing and it'll be impossible for the scale not to move.