[Thousandsunny]

Sup, everyone. I have a question and it's driving me mad. I hope people can chime in and help me out. I've been struggling to drop abut ten pounds that I have stupidly let myself regain and it's been tough. I'm noticing a difference body-shape wise but the numbers won't cooperate. On Sunday, I was 155 and today, the scale read 158, there's no way I ate like 17,000 calories since my only "cheat meal" was some buffalo chicken dip and a bunless turkey cheese-burger and sweet potato fries last night. However, I know that mean is like 900% salt. Is this water weight just messing with me? One of my major problems is salt. I could eat salt alone. All the time. I could salt salt if that was a seasoning option. Is my body just sucking up all the water I'm trying to mainline? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[kaplods]

On a daily basis, you never can tell exactly how much weight on the scale is excess (temporary) water gain or the weight of undigested food in your stomach and intestines.

You just have to accept that fluctuations will happen and focus on the long-term trend rather than the daily results.

I find it helpful to weigh daily, but only "count" (take seriously) and document the weight in my android app once a week or so.

[Treasa]

Salt lover here too! You've lost so much weight that I'm not sure my experience will apply to you. By the second or third day of my period each month I lose more than two pounds so I definitely still have some water retention problems, but they're a lot less than they used to be.

Here's what I've done: I switched my table and cooking salt to Celtic grey sea salt. I had to buy a salt grinder but it was worth it as I'm much less bloated. I use as much of that as I want. The theory is the minerals in the Celtic grey are more in balance with the minerals in your body and so you're not supposed to hang on to the sodium the same way. I sort of believe it as I used to gain more than triple the amount in my monthly cycle when I was using regular Mortons. I still eat from restaurants once or twice a week and I know I'm still getting lots of regular sodium that way. The other way I get a fair amount of the bad kind of sodium is from soy sauce.

Something I sometimes do when I'm just crazy craving salt is increase my potassium intake. I read somewhere that when we're craving salt what our body really wants is potassium. It seems to work for me - not sure if the effect of the potassium is just psychological.