Harold Groot wrote:

I've decided that "officially" weighing myself will be limited to once
per week. Oh, I'm not going to worry if I decide to peek at my weight
at other times - but I won't make daily weighings part of the plan.
This is part of my "Let's maximize feeling good about things" plan. If
my loss is a slow-and-steady 2 pounds per week, I would expect a daily
weighing would have only 2 "good news" days (where the scale dropped a
pound) and 5 "bad news" days (where the scale held steady).

Reality check time - Two pounds per week is not slow. It's Olympic
sprinter doing 100 meters fast. If you have 100+ pounds to lose you
can expect to lose at that rate initially. Not if you have less to lose
initially.

While there are folks who can lose 2+ per week all the way down to only
having 30 to lose, they are also the ones who regain incredibly fast.
You do not want among them.

Here's how to tell what counts as fast and slow - A stall is defined as
4+ weeks in ketosis following the directions without a cheat, without a
new low and without a lost inch. Dr A wrote that the last 10 pounds
were supposed to be lost "slowly" and tha tthe last 10 pounds are
supposed to take a year. Thus 1 pound a month is slow. There hasn't
been a dieter in history who has liked this, but disliking a fact does
not make it false.

Please, please, please, do not set yourself up for self induced
frustration by adopting unrealistic expectations. Reality happens no
matter our wishes. So expect what most others have reported not what
you desire.

And since
one should expect fluctations, there might be some "very bad news"
days where the scale would go back up a pound.

You have not seen random water retension bounce. I can bounce 5 pounds
in a day. A bounce of 3 pounds is very common. This is why folks early
in the plan are told not to weigh daily. Weigh yourself the morning you
start. Weigh yourself the morning of day 15 when you have completed
Induction and it's time to move on. As there is water loss included in
Induction from dropping the stored glycogen and the water it is disolved
in you can't know what fraction of your Induction loss is water.

Here's what you can know - If you follow the directions you WILL NOT
deposit new fat. This fact is far too easily ignored in the face of the
reality of random water retension bounce.

Here's what else you can know - Fighting water retension bounce is like
fighting the tide. The tide DOES receed. But you weren't the cause of
it. The tide DOES come back. You're not the cause of it either.
Dropping glycogen does not reduce random water retension bounce. It
shifts its range down. All efforts to fight water retension bounce are
wasted. it is not the same thing as excess water retension caused by
storing carbs as glycogen or caused by inflammation.

Add the idea of bounce to the idea of stall - If the expected loss rate
is around 1 pound of fat per week and the expected water bounce is 3
pounds then it can take a month for any one new low to happen *with
doing nothing at all wrong*.

But if I weigh myself
only once per week, every weigh-in SHOULD be "good news".

No. It's just the longest anyone realistic can delay dieters from
getting on the scale.

Similarly,
I'm going to look at "my weight loss" more than "my current weight".

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner. As long as you follow the
directions you aren't going to store new fat. Thus what matters is your
most recent new low not today's reading.

I
need to lose a lot of weight. So not only is "My starting weight" an
unhealthy number, so is "My starting weight - 10 pounds". That number
would tend to emphasize to me how far I still have to go. "I've taken
off 10 pounds", however, sounds encouraging. This puts the emphasis on
the progress I've made. These might be trivial things, and other
people might take a different approach, but this is what works best
for me. Other numerical indicators (blood pressure, cholesterol and so
on) would likewise be looked at from the "improvement" point of view.

Right.

Later on there will be a need for more frequest weighings. You
eventually need to learn your water retension bounce so you can tell if
you've regained during maintenance. Now's not the time. Your weight
needs to stablize first.