i mean from week to week, not overall longterm
i am in the position of supposed to be gaining weight, and am doing little cardio and some weights
for first few weeks i saw huge progress, but now not sure how to assess my progress etc
how often should a semi-newbie (been exercising nearly two months) be able to increase either weight or reps, and how long is too long on same reps/weights/routine?

i am not doing heavy lifting due to ED recovery and osteoporosis at age 35 but do want to gain strength, definition, and esp build up shoulders and calves for proportion!

what about the osteoporosis factor..how do you balance increasing load with risk of stress fractures..btw neither my doctor nor trainers know the answer to this!!!

how often do NORMAL people increase reps or load ;-)

I can't comment on the effect that osteoporosis might have, but when I first started weight training I could increase my weight every two weeks or so for the first couple of months. The more muscle you have, the harder it is to increase so you will find that upping the weight gets more difficult as time passes. Personally I kept my reps the same for the first few months (5x10 reps with first set as light warmup set).

You could try pyramiding at first - do the first set of 10 reps on light-ish weight, then 8 reps at higher weight, 6 at higher etc. Then each 2 or 3 weeks try starting on the next weight up. I don't use this approach anymore, but I did find it useful in getting to higher weights quickly at the beginning of my training.