Is initial diet weight loss mostly water or is this just a frequently repeated myth?
If you’re looking for scientific evidence, here’s a very-frequently-cited 1976 article (before Atkins, but describing an Atkins-like “ketogenic” diet): Composition of weight lost (percentage) during the ketogenic diet was water 61.2, fat 35.0, protein 3.8. During the mixed diet, composition of loss was water 37.1, fat 59.5, protein 3.4. … During starvation, mean rate of weight loss was 750.7+50.9 g/day, the composition (percentage) being water 60.9, fat 32.4, protein 6.7. In other words, on either the Atkins-like diet or the starvation diet 60% of the weight loss was just water weight. The “mixed” diet (basically, a lower-calorie diet, radically so in the case of this study) subjects did lose more fat weight than water weight, over the course of several weeks, but again, in the earliest part it was primarily water loss. The results of this study are well accepted and
