Um, not to get too personal, but when is your period due? I always plateau for nine to ten days before my period and the first day or so of it. Then I drop some scary amount of weight -- four pounds in a day one time. No one loses at a set pace, and water weight adds or takes away a pound or two -- sometimes on a day to day basis. Right now, I am actually in a more than week long PMS plateau. Frustrating, but I recognize what it is.

It is amazing what water/food in your stomach, hormones -- heck, even irregularity will add.

Eight pounds in a little over a month is just about right -- stop worrying about whether it comes off at a steady pace. Weight never comes off at a steady pace. Even if you are in a real plateau, according to the Mayo Clinic, most do not last more than 4 weeks. Some do, but the vast majority are between 1 and 4 weeks.

I would agree that, if you wanted to, you could try dropping your calories a bit -- you do have the wiggle room to go to 1400 or 1500. But, really, you are doing just fine.

37 lbs still to go is nothing tiny, of course. But when people say you haven't far to go, they're meaning in comparison to the people who have 50, 100, or even more to lose. And the body sheds pounds very quickly at those weights; the more you have to lose, the faster it comes off, with weight-loss slowing the closer you get to your goal.

Honestly, as many people have said by now, 8 lbs in 6 weeks is wonderful. It's not going to be steady. So long as you're headed in a generally downward direction on the scale, you're doing good. Try not to get too impatient with yourself!

We feel compelled to have a weight loss goal, don't we? Nobody can tell us what we'll look like or feel like but we're encouraged to have a goal. You can't make a ticker without one. You can't even have one of those s/c/g things in your profile.

You can aim for that 37 lbs. Although 30 is a nice round number. My husband likes the number 33 ... don't kow why. But what if you look and feel terrific when you do drop a jeans size? What if you are a perfect size 6 in only 21 lbs?

Rest assured that your program covers all the bases very well. It's an excellent approach not only to weight loss but permanent healthy slimness. I admire it very much and wish many folks would follow your example.

I am so glad you posted that. I have lost 23 lbs in 7 weeks, but have not lost anything these past 5 days or so. But now looking at it, I usually start my period around the 3 - 5th day of the month. Thanks for making me feel better.

I think of goal weight this way, it's something to shoot for, but I can change it any time I want to. Only I will know which weight I am most comfortable at, and at which weight I can realistically expect to maintain. My doctor's opinion matters, as his input will help me make my decision, but ultimately even so, the exact goal is still my choice, and mine alone.

As for speed of weight loss, ugh. When I was younger, and at this weight trying to lose, I was losing 6 or more pounds each week for the first several months. Now I'm on disability, and have insulin resistance and I can't exercise as much, or be as active as I once was. My appetite is MUCH smaller, heck I think I'd have felt starved ten years ago on what I'm eating now. Sometimes it drives me crazy that the weight isn't coming off faster, but I remember that it's impatience and discouragement that has driven me off every weight loss attempt I ever made.

It's taken me a year to get most of my weight off. Not even a pound a week, and sometimes I tell myself that at my size, that's ridiculous. Then I kick myself in the pants for starting to think the discouraging thoughts that in the past have led me down the path of defeat.

If I'm not satisfied with my progress, there's only two things I can do (and still succeed). 1. Make changes in my food or exercise. Or 2. Learn to accept the rate of progress.

If I'm really doing all that I can, or all I am willing to do; then I'm really stuck with whatever results I get. If I can and want to do more, I can try that (but even so, I'm stuck with whatever results I get).

In the past, I would often get discouraged when I was doing all I was willing to do, but not all I could. I finally realized that I'm under no obligation to lose at optimal pace. I don't have to lose it "as fast as I possibly can." Everything you choose, limits your choices. If I put every ounce of my strength, energy, and attention into losing weight, I could lose much faster, but I'd have to make sacrifices I'm not willing to make (AND THAT IS OK).

In many ways, I had to rethink weight loss. There are so many dieting myths and traditions that we follow, because it's the pattern we've come to expect. It's like I was feeling bad about my weight loss pace, because I felt I was supposed to (it's what dieters do, isn't it?) I was giving up when I became discouraged, because it's what I expected for myself.

Keep in mind that many of us on this thread have lost (or will have lost when we reach goal) 50 or 100 pounds. I'm down to 30 lb to go before I reach my goal and from that perspective, I don't think I have that far to go!

It's all perspective. don't start psyching yourself out and playing word games that will confuse you or derail you. You picked a goal, and you can work towards it. If you find, as you get closer, that you need to change that goal, you can. No one is grading you on whether you pick the perfect number the first time!

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I think I've heard "2 lbs per week" so much that I had really begun to wonder if I was doing this right. Instead, I will focus on a)a slightly smaller drop of 1% on the average and b)all the other improvements I've got going on, such as my running definitely getting better in the past month. (I am usually such a pokey runner that one morning when my watch said I'd run an average pace of 10:30 I did a carrot dance. )

I started out making 2 pounds a week my goal. I think the original intention of that "guideline" was because people expected to lose more than that. Now I think we would all be so much better if that "guideline" was never there. It's become something we feel like failures for not reaching. Why would you lose at the same rate when 250 vs 150, for example?

I chart my daily weights on a spreadsheet, and I have a line showing the 2 pounds a week rate. I have to get rid of that one of these days because I don't think I'm going to be near it ever again. And I am so fine with that. I am tired of seeing my little x's so far off that mark, as if I've done something wrong, when I haven't.

So of course I get on the scale this morning...and it shows a 3-lb drop.

Hm. Maybe if I complain publicly about how I'm not happy with things are going every week...