Fifteen Weeks.

Seems like last week I was at 192.8. Wait, that's because I was. Another week of no progress, and I am blaming water again. I have two more days to meet February's goal of 192. I think it will happen, either on or around that date. I believe I can claim 8 pounds of weight loss since January 31, since I weighed in at 200 on that date.

The problem overall is finding the correct formula for consistent weight loss without throwing a monkeywrench into the mix. I seem to have a large collection of monkeywrenches, and really don't know enough about my own body chemistry to keep weight loss at any sort of reliable pace.

Another side effect to this diet that can mess with your head is the natural "bounce" of numbers on the scale. The caloric cycle of up/down/up/down reflects each day as fluctuations on the scale. Whereas a day after a "down" day may be a new low weight, the very next day will "bounce" the scale up, sometimes two pounds.

Even if this is followed again by a strict "down" day (where the scale still hasn't recovered from the upward "bounce") water retention may still be in play, due to several possible factors.

• Carbohydrate-regulated retention, caused by molecules of water binding to residual carbs in the body. 
• Muscle-repair regulated retention, because exercise will stress muscles, which causes water to flood the injured areas
• Bowel-regulated retention, due to irregularities in elimination (a nice way to say water is flooding the intestines in order to get you to poop)
• Hormone bloat (for women, who retain water during certain times of the month)
• Medication gain, where some meds will cause a ridiculous bloatfest.
• And dehydration, which makes you retain water if you don't drink enough. 

I won't bother to mention the weight of waste in your system due to the food ingested the day before. I think enough poop talk has been mentioned already.

So, is there any way around the water retention effect? Nope. It will happen. It will happen a lot.

Dealing with scale "bounce" is not a fiery sign that something has gone wrong. It means the diet is just reflecting one of the scenarios listed above, if not more than one. I find there is no reason to freak out, it's just incredibly annoying that waiting for your body to get over itself can fritter away so much time better spent shopping for smaller clothing sizes.

I have stoically endured two weeks of normal "bounce" before the scale started to move downward again. I endured a whole month of it due to meds.

Now I need to go and drink some water, in order to make water weight go away. Counter-intuitive? You bet!