hi everybody,

i'm new here, joined this morning and it's been awesome reading everyone's progress and success!

i was just wondering though, if anybody had any advice as to what, realistically, i might lose in the first one to two weeks of trying to lose weight?

for the past week (today marks one week exactly), i've cut my intake to 1300 - 1400 cals a day, logged everything i eat into calorieking.com.au, been to the gym 3 times and walked for an hour on the days i didn't go to the gym. on friday, i had a session with a trainer and he gave me a weight lifting based workout plan and said just to go for walks and do light cardio on my rest days (ie 3 days weight lifting, 3 days light cardio on alternate days). i'm happy with all this, and i've been told over and over that diet is the most important influence in weight loss and that eating healthier and less will be most important in losing weight.

i suppose i just felt a bit discouraged this morning when i got on the scales and weighed the same as last week. i'm really hoping to drop about 10 - 15 kgs (20 - 30 lbs?) in the next 3 - 4 months. i've also spoken to so many people and heard from others about how they've lost good amounts of weight in the beginning weeks of changing their eating and yet i lost nothing this week . i also understand that some people say that i might be losing weight but it just doesn't show on the scales but that sounds iffy to me... surely if i am dropping body fat, the scales would reflect that.

so folks, how long did it take to start noticing changes in the scale reading? i'm trying not to be discouraged and not to cut my intake even less... i have a history of restrictive and bulimic eating disorders and i don't want to slip into that again.

thanks everyone!

I lost two pounds the first month I was dieting.

I'm a guy. I was 300 lbs.

Focus on the process, not the scale.

Take pictures and measurements at least once a month.

The scale is an extremely unreliable way to measure your progress on a short term basis.

Another thing to keep in mind the first couple of weeks along with what JohnP said, is that your body won't be used to the sudden workouts and such so you will retain water, your body will fluctuate, and then after it starts to process what is happening it will begin to let go of the extra things it has been holding on to because it knows it will get more.

Yep, water retention can happen due to hormone changes (your period), eating a slightly higher amount of salt than usual, working out, etc. Water retention can mask on the scale genuine weight drops.

Two months ago I had a very sodium-full dinner out and gained 5 lbs which wouldn't go away for 2 full weeks. It finally did and I dropped 2 more lbs in 2 days after that.

It is SO hard to keep going day to day when the reward/payoffs are so far off in the distance. That's why I try to focus on behavioral changes (i.e. staying on calorie plan and exercising) and behavioral rewards (getting to log in my successes publicly on 3FC) each day. Right now I am losing at 1 lb/month at the most, probably a bit slower. If I focused on daily or weekly changes I would be quite demoralized!

It sounds like you are doing really, really well so big congrats for going about this the healthy way and making lifestyle choices! 20-30 lbs in 3-4 months sounds quite ambitious to me. If you make it that's awesome, but if you don't and have made changes in your diet and exercise you can stick to for the rest of your life that's an even better accomplishment.

I'd have to agree on the fluid retention... it's probably that. You've been doing everything right, so at some point soon it will catch up to the scale.

I have a lot of fluctuations in water weight, moreso now that I'm in my 40's. I can see and feel it - my rings don't fit some days. For the past 9 days now, I haven't lost a single pound... even though I've been doing well almost every day with my plan (a couple of hundred cals fluctuation one or 2 of the days only). It's also been my TOM... I'm hoping for a big week next week. I've only been at it for 7 weeks now, but already I am seeing a pattern in my losses.. nothing for awhile, then a few pounds in a few days, then nothing again for a week or longer.

It IS hard and can be demoralizing - you just have to focus on the lifestyle change and believe that it will catch up with you over weeks, not days.. you'll get there!

I'm going to beat a dead horse here and say that it's most likely fluid retention. It sounds like you've gotten spot-on advice and if you follow it you will lose weight, be more toned, and get healthier. But you will probably drive yourself crazy if you try to measure your weight progress in timescales of less than a month.

Even people who exercise regularly will tell you that they can gain up to 3 pounds the day after they exercise. You are probably retaining some fluid from your new routine. You may be eating some saltier foods (you may be adding soy sauce or whatever to your foods to make the low calorie meals tastier). That also has a huge impact on fluid retention (in my case, the most extreme example was a huge salty bowl of pho which resulted in a temporary 5 lb gain). And, you may also be nearing that time of the month. Any one of those factors (or others) could easily mask a true loss of body fat on the scale.

People often do lose extra their first few weeks on a diet (they are eating less, so there's less... stuff... inside and perhaps they are eating lower carbs which can shed some water weight), but it's the luck of the draw. For those folks who do lose extra initially, they have to face later periods when their loss slows down, stops, or goes up. You are just facing this challenge at the start and hopefully it will give you an advantage because you will have to embrace the fact that the scale will not truly track the result of your efforts in the short run.

Welcome to 3FC and good luck!

I should add even if you're not retaining water it still can take time for results to show up on the scale. I usually bump around 1-2 lbs during the month and then suddenly lost 1 lb on the scale. It's my only loss for the month. Weight loss is (generally) not linear

You cannot allow yourself to lose motivation, especially not so quickly... Easier said than done, I KNOW, but it is very important you keep your eye on the prize.

- Weigh yourself at the same time (on an empty stomach, in the morning, after going to the toilet is my time of choice!)
- Take measurements at EXACTLY the same place on your body (use beauty spots or measurements like 2cm above the belly button) to make sure you are measuring the same spot.
- Continue to keep track of your eating habits and drink lot's of water.

What kind of scale do you have? If you are serious about weight loss, you might consider investing in a scale that has more precision and shows water, fat, muscle, etc. My scale works on a 50 gram interval.

Also, is this exercise a drastic change in your lifestyle or were you already active? You have to consider that fat and muscle have different volumes and that you may have lost fat and gained muscle in the same proportion, causing your weight to maintain... But you will be smaller.

Personally I also have a pair of goal pants, it will take me a few months to get there... I still can't button them up, but I can get them over my hips now, which is an improvement This helps me to evaluate my body off the scale.

Also a calorie is a calorie, but are you eating a lot of packaged/processed food? Do you add salt to your meals? Are you eating a normal amount of carbs? Fruit? Dairy?

Everyone has a different system and you just have to find what is "doable" for you in terms of feeling comfortable, diet and healthy eating, exercise and weight loss...

Also, is TOM (time of the month) anywhere close?

And most important, do not compare your loss with anyone else, everybody is different. It will be the bottom line that counts. Give yourself time. It sounds like you have a good plan

Eh, don't rely on the scale. It lies. A lot. The best thing to do is keep up with your plan, focus on that. Take measurements, notice how your clothes start to feel different on you. It's not going to happen overnight, trust me. Your 4 month goal has taken me 8 to accomplish, but everyone loses weight differently.

Use the success stories here to motivate you towards your goal, but remember, it's going to be different for you.

Don't give up!

My 2 cents, don't get on the scale for 12 weeks. Concentrate on working your plan. You know you're doing the right thing but if you continually see what you perceive as slow loss, you may get discouraged.

This is what I did, and so glad I did it that way. I had the factors that "should" have resulted in big losses (high starting weight, sedentary lifestyle) and yet only lost 12 lbs in 12 weeks. If I had seen only 1 lb or less when I was putting in such huge effort, I'm sure I would have given up. But the 12 lb loss showed me that things were happening and I persisted. But at the end of 14 months, the 100 lbs was gone and has stayed off for more than 1 year.

thanks everyone! good to hear positive words and get some idea about why i haven't lost (according to the scales). i do realise that my weight loss period is ambitious but i really want to work my hardest to get there.. if i don't and i know i've done everything possible to try then i won't be disappointed in myself!

thanks for your reply! in answer to your questions -

my scales are decent although not top of the range. they measure body fat as well as weight (and something else i think, i'm not home at the moment so i can't tell you). they are also digital and pretty accurate, they measure me very close to the scale at the gym which is some big precise contraption.

the exercise is a definite change although i was never sedentary. i used to go to the gym and stopped going about 4 months ago - although i never lost any weight because my diet didnt change much and i had no idea what to do at the gym so didn't have a real plan for when i went. since then i have just been going for 30 - 40 min walks every few days, maybe 3 times a week. so i am definitely doing more strenuous exercise more often now that i've been given a plan and direction.

i'm not eating a lot of packaged/processed food. i've never been one for that kind of stuff and make my own meals. for snacks i am eating dried fruit and nuts. i do add salt to my meals because i love salt (terrible i know, i'm bound to get hypertension later on). as for carbs, i am trying to stick to 50-30-20 for carbs-protein-fats although it seems to end up being 45-30-25 most days.

oh and yes, time of month is not far off! although probably about a week away.. is it normal to weigh more up to a week or more before TOM?

You really don't need top of the range scales, they just need to be accurate to a pound, though some people like to have a scale which are accurate to 0.5lb or 0.2lb. Yours sound fine. Don't rely on more than one scale, though, as they will usually be a bit different and it won't show your progress properly. Stick to one scale alone.

You should also remember that the weight loss industry tries to make people aim for unrealistically high levels of weight loss and then feel like failures if they don't do this. We are always seeing people on this forum complaining that they "only" lose 1lb/week, whereas 1lb/week is actually pretty fast.

Yes, it's normal for your hormones to affect your weight, sometimes to the tune of 5lb or more. You'll get a feel for it after a few months. It's also normal for dieting to make your cycles go a bit crazy as well, come to that.

A woman can gain at any time in her cycle (and even more than once - some women gain at TOM and at ovulation, others gain in between).

Weight loss patterns vary. Some people gradually and steadily lose weight, for other people the scale won't move for weeks and weeks, and then a larger chunk of weight will drop off.

There are just so many possible patterns, that there is no way to predict what you can expect.

My recommendation is that you use a journal to log your food and exercise and a calendar to mark your weight (whether you weigh daily or weekly).

After about six months you may start to see patterns that you can use to predict some things, and you may not. Sometimes the patterns are illusive.

You can do everything "right" and still not see the patterns you hope or expect. It's why I caution you against seting time based goals. I know that you said you won't be discouraged if you've done everything possible - but that's not what usually happens (especially for a person how has a history of disordered eating).

What is most likely to happen in my experience, is that you'll second-guess absolutely every choice you have made, berate yourself for not doing more, and magnify every miniscule mistake to catastrophic proportions.

That you're already facing feelings of discouragement after only one week, isn't an especially promising sign.

Please don't let feelings that you "should be doing better" lead you into unwise choices.

I wish I had learned this lesson 40 years ago. Instead, I quit many weight loss attempts because I was convinced that I was failing.

"This time" I'm succeeding slower than I've ever failed. I was losing faster when I failed in the past than during any of my loss this time. I was used to losing 5 - 8 lbs per week, and when my weight loss slowed to less than 1 lb per week or when I'd plateau for several weeks, I would get discouraged and give up. I can't lose that way any more.

I've learned that the "averages" mean absolutely nothing. What you may or may not be able to lose, can vary tremendously.

If after six weeks, you still aren't losing, you might want to see a doctor to rule out endocrine issues and other health issues.