I've noticed two distinct patterns in my weight loss. I'm not just referring to now, but over the years.

The first in of course TOM. About 4-5 days after it starts, the weight loss is a whoosh. I can't even say its water weight because about a week after its over, I am about 6-10 lbs lighter. Then I may lose another pound or two. Then mid month I get a tiny gain( pound to pound and a half) for a few days which I have finally realized is ovulation. Then that will go, and I will maintain or gain a pound or two leading up to TOM. Then the pattern starts all over again.

Now I have always figured that TOM is the main reason.

But I have begun to notice a second pattern. Before TOM I definitely over eat. I'm not counting cals but I'm eating a lot of high calorie foods in larger amounts, but I'm NOT binging, I guess I'm taking in about 2500 to maybe 3000 calories a day for a few days...thank you cravings. The stall in my weight loss may be related to that and less to actual TOM. But usually a day or two before TOM my cravings switch off and I'm back to normal eating.

So I've also noticed that when I have 4-5 days off HIGH calories, but NOT binging, that when I go back to lower calories, the weight comes off fast.

Has anyone noticed a few days off what ever plan you are following (meaning you increase your calories, but NOT binging) leads to an increased weight loss when you get back on plan?

Yes I have noticed that with myself and have heard others speak of it before. I've heard others use high calories days when weight loss has stalled to get the scale moving again. I went on a 4 day "binge" (well, I called it a binge but it wasn't an "eat everything in sight all day long" type of binge. I just ate way more food throughout the day than I normally would) after my weight had stalled from what I thought was the heavy lifting I was doing. I put on tons of water weight during that time, but once I started eating lower calories again, the weight started flying off and the scale is continuing to go down even with my heavy lifting. It's very interesting. Of course it's not ideal to go on a 4 day eating spree like I did lol, but one day out of the week where you eat high calories may keep the body from stalling. The human body is so interesting.

I would agree. I've noticed it more "this time" trying to lose than others. I was working hard to lose weight for a weight loss challenge at work, so I was trying hard to be under calories as much as possible, but then there would be those days that I would be much higher just from circumstances (going out to eat, etc). Then, getting back on track would cause a big loss.

I think that shaking things up a little bit confuses our bodies into releasing some pounds. Ha!

I may test this out when I stall to see if it works. I actually increased my cals yesterday (more so because of circumstance) and so we'll see.

I'm pretty sure this is an imagined advantage, though a lot of people swear by it and I used to do it when I was wrestling. When you feed people a precise number of calories in a lab it always causes weight loss when the calories are low (usually 800-1200) which makes me think that when the scale is not moving it's a lot more likely we miscounted the calories, or gained lean body mass than we aren't eating enough.
The TOM thing is obviously a unique challenge that I have no idea about and probably affects everyone differently, but the scale certainly stalls for men as well even at times when you're convinced you've eaten identically to the previous day.

GlamourGirl: This post is very timely as I've found I'm in a stall (well, if two weeks can be considered a stall) yet my appetite has been huge this week for some reason, and I even went way over calories a couple days ago, by about 600. So yesterday I was back on track and the scale this morning showed 1/2 pound loss, but I don't think one day of being back on track is enough to produce the whoosh you are talking about. I am interested in what next week's weight loss will show, to see if I follow your pattern. I haven't been really good about noticing my own patterns lately, maybe because I've changed up too many things and there is not much consistency to my weight loss this year.