Not that I have any intention of giving up 6 days in - but I AM starting my 6th day and haven't lost one single pound. I've stayed within points each day, I drink at least 80 ozs of water a day. I just worked out for the first time last night, but I would think just cutting my food intake in half would drop at least ONE pound...any thoughts???

Thanks!

Hang in there, our bodies are very strange, sometimes they seem to hang onto those pounds for dear life and then drop them at the last minute. Make sure you weigh first thing in the morning after the toilet in your birthday suit too!!!

You didn't gain it all in 6 days.Be patient it will happen!If you eat fewer calories and exercise more you WILL lose.

If it makes you feel any better, I was up FIVE pounds at my first weigh-in. I'm sure it's mostly because I had surgery and I'm wearing a boot and taking painkillers that are doing who knows what to me in terms of water retention, but that alone can't weigh 5 pounds. I was so good my first week. I counted my points, drank my water, and then that. I didn't expect to see a big loss at my first weigh-in, but it would have been nice to have at least maintained and not see a 5 pound gain. I'm just trying to ignore this week and hope to be 10 pounds down next time (to put me at a 5 lb loss since starting).

Let me ask you a few questions:

1) are you eating at a very minimum all your daily points? Additionally if you are try eating your activity points you earn each day and/or some if not all of your weekly points

2) are you following the 8 healthy guidelines

3) is it TOM...water retention the average woman gains 4-7 pounds during TOM

4) did you just start or change an exercise routine...if so you can retain water and show no loss or even gains when this change is introduced

5) are you eating many simple carbs and/or processed food...sodium can cause retention

6) are you dining out a lot ... even staying within your points dinig out is loaded with sodium...especially SUBWAY while Subway is very point friendly they have more sodium than a frozen dinner.

7) are you weighin and measuring your foods correctly?

Also this article can help you understand why you should stay off the scale except for official weighins (once a week):

Why The Scale Lies
by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.

Thanks Kelly - that was a good article. To answer your questions, yes, I am eating my daily points. I haven't cut into the weekly points at all. It's not TOM, and I've only eaten out once (WW at Applebees). I do Curves - so that has stayed the same. About the only processed foods I eat are the frozen dinners, but I've tried not to eat those. I do measure my foods - and put them all into the weight tracker and make sure the points are there. I also drink anywhere from 80-120 ozs of water a day, and have pretty much given up diet coke. I know that I just need to be patient, I guess an absolute no change in weight kind of threw me. I need to put the scale away and only weigh on Friday's. Oh - and I printed out the Healthy 8's - need to memorize those and really learn what portions are.

Thanks again - I'm not discouraged yet - I'm going to do this! If nothing else, I feel better not being stuffed all the time, and amazingly enough, my clothes ARE looser on me.

Try eating some Weekly points and your Activity points.

It's a good idea to take your measurements when you're starting out, even if you don't want to, because you can see those results and success when the scale isn't cooperating. That book You on a diet says you should not go by the scale at all, that you should go by your waist measurement. The measuring tape has gotten me through some slow weight loss weeks.

stick with it!

also, I agree with Kel, you might have to eat a bit more to kick your weight loss in gear.

good luck!

Don't get discouraged. I do weigh myself every day and I am okay with that. I don't panic if it is up or put too much into it if the weight is down as it will fluctuate significantly during the week.
I have found week after week (been on WW 8 weeks now) that the scale for me does not stabilize until my 7th day which is my weigh in day.
If you have just started it may take your body a couple weeks to adjust to the new eating pattern. I friend of mine loses only every other week the equivalent of my two weeklies combined so each body is different. Kelly has posted some wonderful information that I am sure will help you
Hang in there..don't get discouraged and good luck on your journey
Joyce