Originally Posted by TucsonBill

Don't give too much weight to what I say, I'm still sort of a newb - been on low carb almost 8 weeks and I'm probably doing a lot of stuff wrong.

A couple things I learned is that my weight can fluctuate 2-3 pounds a day just based on salt and carb intake. I check the scale 2-3 time a day, (I know that's bad to do lol), but I force myself to loose weight every week. Salt makes your body retain water and so do carbs. Every time you cheat, every molecule of carb that gets stored, stores 3 molecules of water along with it. Also, I can very easily lose 2-3 pounds just soaking in a hot bath for 30 minutes.

Carbs count and so do calories. The thing that amazes me most about this low carb diet is how much my appetite has diminished. At 4 weeks I was usually skipping one meal a day, last week I had 2 24 hour fasts by only eating dinner two days in a row, and this week I've mostly skipping breakfast and lunch. I'm probably down now to less than 1000 calories a day, and less than 20 carbs (I don't do the "net carb" thing - I count all carbs).

I was in bad shape with edema and lost nearly 18 pounds of water weight the first week and since then I have been averaging more than 3 pounds per week with no stalls so far.

EDIT: Also I try to weigh myself at the same time and under the same circumstances every Sunday morning. I go zero carbs and almost zero sodium on Saturday and make sure to get in a good long walk and / or a good low impact cardio workout on Saturday so that I minimize extra water weight Sunday morning.