Losing Weight Is Like Trying to Take Olives out of a Bottle

the first pound is hard to lose, but after that it's (relatively) easy.

I have a new client who, at the time of this writing, had been working with my program for 5 days. She had followed all of my advice except for one essential piece, which was almost a deal breaker.

TO begin with, she'd done the 5 days I recommend in which she changed none of her current habits, just kept a journal - what time she got up, what time she went to bed. Every single meal or snack she ate, every type of drink she drank, from water to pop to coffee to alchohol, if any. SHe also wrote down how she felt before and after each event - did eating a donut for breakfast give her a headache, did she start snacking because she was hungry or bored, and so on.

Then, she spent 5 days working on the program. She started walking a half mile each day. She didn't get any leg exercise equipment, but she used dumbbells to exercise her arms. She did cut out all snacks - cookies and so on - rather than diminish them gradually.

And she went to bed each night feeling slightly hungry. Not starving, but hungry. And it was this feeling that caused her to believe that she'd just have to have lost weight by the next day.

But...she did the one thing I told her not to do. She also weighed herself every day - once at night before she went to bed, when people weight the most, and once in themorning after she got up and went to the bathroom - when people weigh the least.

And on the fifth day, when she weighed herself in the morning and saw that for 5 days her weight had not varied at all, she got angry. Not at me but at life in general. Here she'd been going to bed hungry for 5 days, and hadn't lost a single pound. Obviously she couldn't lose weight so why bother.

So I told her what I tell all my clients - you are not going to lose any weight in the first week of the program - or any program. You're exercising which is going to increase muscle weight - which is a good thing, and in any event your body doesn't work that way.

Your body is at a plateau...it takes more than one day of caloric imbalance before it starts losing weight...it takes at least two weeks. But after that two weeks...after that first pound goes away...then, the weight starts to come off steadily, as long as that caloric imbalance is maintained.

So please - when you first start this weight loss program - weigh yourself on the first day, sure. But then, don't weigh yourself again for at least 2 whole weeks. And after that 2 weeks, you will have lost 1 or 2 pounds. That may seem like a small amount, but it is cause for celebration (although not by consuming a Blizzard!) because then you will know you are on your way.