It seems to happen to every dieter at some point: The scale refuses to budge, despite your weight-loss regime. Don't despair. Losing weight is a process that relies on many factors, including exercise, diet, personal habits and stress levels.

Although your spleen is a vital part of your immune system, sometimes doctors must remove it. Most often, this occurs when the spleen ruptures after an abdominal injury, but it's also necessary as a treatment for certain cancers, blood disorders or infections.

Fasting--or consuming nothing but water for a specific period of time--seems a quick and easy way to drop a few pounds quickly. Most major health organizations, including the American Heart Association, do not recommend taking drastic measure to lose weight.

To shed pounds, you must create a caloric deficit by burning more calories than you eat each day. To lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, you must burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume per day.

Lounging in front of the TV while snacking on chips and soda isn't going to reduce your weight. Although working up a sweat and changing your eating habits might sound like torture to your predominantly sedentary self, they can help you lose weight.

Quick results in weight loss require consistent action. You can safely lose 3 to 6 pounds in 20 days by making changes in your diet and physical activity.

Water makes up about 60 percent of your total body weight, and you lose and replace about 2 to 3 liters a day. Some days, it may feel like you retain more water than you lose. Water weight shows up on your body as swollen fingers and ankles, a bloated belly and sluggishness.

When you're trying to lose weight, what you really want is to lose fat while preserving your lean muscle mass. Ketosis occurs when the body burns fat at a high rate. Lowering your carbohydrate intake gets you into the fat-burning zone, but you don't necessarily have to be in ketosis to achieve this goal.

Splitting your daily food intake up into percentages of calories from carbs, fat and protein can help you plan and stick to a diet based on your goals.

The sauna may appear to be a tempting shortcut when you want to lose weight, but you can't shed 10 pounds safely by sitting in one of these heated rooms. In addition, spending long sessions in the sauna -- which can reach 160 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit -- can cause serous dehydration.

Waist trimming and compression aren't new concepts. David Kunzle points out in his book, "Fashion and Fetishism" that women have been binding their bodies for centuries to create a trimmer, more hourglass appearance. The only difference is that the new crop of waist trimmers promise to help you lose weight.

Munching mindlessly in front of the television after dinner or stopping for a late-night snack after an evening of dancing can cause you to pile on the pounds. But a sensible meal that you eat later in the evening because of due your work schedule is unlikely to send your weight spiraling out of control.