For about a month I didn't drop much weight at all, but made strength progress. Wednesday my trainer said he thought I should be still losing weight and suggested maybe I'm drinking too much water. I asked maybe salt too? He said yeah that would be the other thing.

So I didn't really cut way back on drinking, but I drank a little less in the workout. I laid off a little salt. I also worked out about half what I normally would, due to pressure of business.

I lost five pounds over the past two days.

Huh. Was it really water?

How much water were you previously consuming (approx) and how much did you cut back?

I'm sorry to be blunt but its late and I'm tired: WHAT?! Who cares if you haven't lost weight..is it about the scale-weight or the fat loss? If you made strength gains, thats AWESOME!

Lets ask more important questions than your trainer bothered to ask: how do you FEEL, how do your clothes fit, how do you look in the mirror???

Are you preparing for a body building competition?

If you're concerned about salt in take, track it..eat more potassium to balance it out..but honestly this sounds a bit fishy to me...too much water??? I've literally drunk over a gallon a day on a cutting diet and NEVER experienced a situation whereby I though "If I drank less water I'd lose more weight."

I drink about a gallon aday.. Now maybe if my salt was overdone , I think he is grasping and he also knows if you drink less water and still sweat the same , your going dehydrate yourself and be down on the weight, So he solves your problem with hurting your workouts by dehydrating you, Get a new trainer.
I hate it when they try to put you with a trainer that has little muscle..tone..or even has 20% or more BF and expect me to beleive his diections... :p rant over :D Now put me with Swole...Jeremy...Tom V. etc.., and I'm following to the "T"

How much water were you previously consuming (approx) and how much did you cut back?

I was drinking about two liters a day, and it has gone down to somewhat more like one and a half.

I'm sorry to be blunt but its late and I'm tired: WHAT?! Who cares if you haven't lost weight..is it about the scale-weight or the fat loss? If you made strength gains, thats AWESOME!

Overnight I lost another two and a half pounds.

OK here's the point. I've made consistent slow weight loss and strength gain progress over the last year. I look a lot better, feel that better, all that stuff.

But dropping seven pounds in three days is very unexpected.

I drink about a gallon aday.. Now maybe if my salt was overdone , I think he is grasping and he also knows if you drink less water and still sweat the same , your going dehydrate yourself and be down on the weight, So he solves your problem with hurting your workouts by dehydrating you, Get a new trainer.

Nothing that extreme. Plus, I worked out less than normal because of my schedule. We're talking about three days here.

It's not likely to be dehydration because I feel great. I know about dehydration when I do the 2500 calories in a little over two hour workouts - I drink a lot of water for those. But I didn't do that since last week because I couldn't schedule it.

I've been working with this trainer for about a year, and the results are very good. Slow weight loss, slow strength gain.

I didn't cut back to anything like low water or low salt, I just put about half the salt I usually do in the pasta water and left off a half liter of water out of two.

I am not on any strict type diet - I'm not bulking or cutting, just sliding the steady state over to a better place for about a year now.

I'm just trying to "listen to my body". But at the moment I'm not sure what it's saying.

I hate it when they try to put you with a trainer that has little muscle..tone..or even has 20% or more BF and expect me to beleive his diections...

None of that would be a problem here. Going by eye he looks like about 9%bf - ripped, veins, etc. He's got a bit too much development above the waist because he doesn't work legs as much as he should (he admits it). He is a former boxer and baseball player. He looks pretty much like this guy:

http://www.toprank.com/photo_gallery/june_5_2004/Bernard_Hopkins_t2.jpg

except with a little less body fat and a bit more forearms.

I suspect if 2 liters is much. Most unlikely if you ask me. I drink one 2 liter and one 1.5 liter bottles of water during work and an extra 1 liter water during workout and I still lose
weight and I did lose a lot (17 lbs in about 35 days, waist from 36 to 32 inches). Bathroom travel is another story though.... You drink more you piss more...

I think that instructing you to drink less water or eat less salt to lose weight doesn't make any sense. If you drink less and lose water weight, it doesnt really matter because it's water weight. I don't see how it has anything to do with fat loss. You may have dropped a few pounds, but of what? Water!

Cut back on salt if you eat too much of it, but do it because it is healthier, or because you look bloated. In addition, I have read that your body holds less water when you drink more. If you don't drink enough water, you body retains more water because it 'thinks' it won't be getting more. If you drink more water, your body lets it pass through. (I don't know if this is true--anyone else?)

I was drinking about two liters a day, and it has gone down to somewhat more like one and a half.
Call me crazy, but isn't 2 liters per day NOT very much?

It's not "not much water" by most people's standards, but it's less than most people here might advise.

Unless I have my calculations wrong? Google says:

1 US gallon = 3.7854118 liters

Is this correct? If so, then I don't think that "drink less water" is the greatest piece of advice myself...