Oh and by the way... 3lb rule doesn't work for me at all. I cheated on my birthday and gained 6lbs in one day. It was ridiculous. I'm huge with the water retention. Only took a week to get back to normal though. As such, I'm careful with my cheats. I throw several days of cheats together and try to keep moderation in mind and it has the same effect as cheating just one day. So my birthday cheating on one day... same result as the 4 or so days around Christmas. Both took me a week to recover from. I just have to have the discipline to get right back to it when I've decided enough is enough and make sure when I'm cheating that I'm not going overboard (which I'm pretty good about since non-LC food makes me pretty ill now).

I so hear you about being able to gain weigh at the blink of an eye! For me that sudden up of 5 - 7 pounds in a day is water weight. I examine my intake for:
1) sodium (anything over 1500 mg of sodium a day and I baloon!)
2) additives (msg and some others will also make me retain water)
3) low water consumption (yep, not enough water, makes me gain water.) I need at least 100 oz a day for my body to work effienciently.
4) Carb level. When I go about 40 gms of carbs a day, I retain! (Oh bother!)

I have to spend a couple of days keeping all of these in line to drop the water... I won't tell you how long it took me to figure this out about me! Ya'd think one would automatically know these things! :-)