> <i>After the first week, which is always the hardest, I'd lost 10 pounds.</i><p>Dropping carbohydrates from the diet causes a drop in retained water. For instance, some energy is stored in the muscles as glycogen, which binds with water on an approximately 1-to-3 basis. Each gram of glycogen binds ~3g of water; so when you cut carb intake and begin to break down stored glycogen, you unsurprisingly lose weight quickly.<p>Paleo and keto types call this a "signing bonus". It's generally not an indicator of the long term trend because there's not much of your body mass tied up this way. When people are overweight, it's usually fat. And fat is a <i>stupidly</i> dense store of energy compared to the glycogen/water mechanism.<p>Athletes in weight-class sports (boxing, powerlifting, wrestling, weightlifting etc) have known about carbohydrate and sodium tricks for manipulating water weight for a long time.<p>All the matters is: can you impose a long term deficit? Whether by paleo, keto or any other dietary method, the <i>sole long term determinant of average body mass is net caloric balance</i>.<p>I wrote about this simple physical fact last year [1], which prompted what one friend called "the diet riot". It was good for lulz then. I bet it will be again.<p>In the past year I've followed a diet called "Eating Less" (Intermittent Fasting, to be all trendy about it[2]). So far this has put me down about 30kg from my peak weight -- approximately 65lb.<p>[1] <a href="http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/" rel="nofollow">http://chester.id.au/2012/05/26/fat-and-simple/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/" rel="nofollow">http://chester.id.au/2012/04/17/my-diet/</a>