Losing Weight Quickly

So on Sunday, I started PMO-mode. Because of that, I started eating less, but a healthy amount. Yesterday, I checked my weight, I lost 1.7 pounds in 4 days, I'm a bit worried. Should I worry or is this just normal with eating healthier portions of food? I weighed 156.8 now I weigh 155.1. I'm 13 and Male and I'm 5'8.5

 

I weighed myself before I go to sleep both times, so after my shower, I eat, do sports and everything. Also, I wasn't even trying to diet at all. I guess no PMO is making me eat more reasonable servings. Thank you though because I was a bit worried.

 

That makes sense, a lot of sense.

 

^ Beat me to it. I'm only really posting to confirm that what Byris said is correct.

Here's a little experiment to show you just how much of a difference water weight makes:

- Weigh yourself tomorrow morning right after waking up and after using the bathroom (but before eating or drinking ANYTHING)
- Weigh yourself right after dinner the same day
- Weigh yourself right before bed
- Weigh yourself when you wake up the next morning

After dinner you'll be anywhere from 1-5lbs heavier (some of that is food, but it's also water weight), right before bed you'll weigh less, but still more than the morning most likely.. then the next morning you'll suddenly be a whole lot lighter, because overnight you lose a bunch of water weight.

The most drastic changes in water weight happen when you suddenly drop calories. Carbs make you retain water (this is why keto makes you initially lose weight faster - if caloric intake is kept the same, keto is really no faster at burning fat than a regular diet, but it is a lot faster at shedding a whole bunch of water weight, and so in the first couple of weeks you can see some really big scale drops) so when you're eating less of them (and eating less in general) all of a sudden, a whole bunch of water weight disappears.

It's not uncommon to lose 6-7lbs in your first week on a diet if there was a pretty big drop in calories - but you're still probably only losing 1-2lbs of fat at the most.

If you're trying to lose fat, here's what you should do:

- Try and keep an eye on your food intake. Ideally track it, but if you don't want to track it at least keep an eye on how much you eat each day.
- Weigh yourself every single morning as soon as you wake up and use the bathroom, but before you eat or drink anything.
- At the end of each week, add up all your morning weigh ins, and divide them by the total number of weigh ins to get the weekly average. i.e. if you remembered to weigh yourself every day, then add up all 7 numbers and divide by 7. If you only remembered to weigh yourself 6 days, add up and divide by 6, you get the idea.
- Adjust based on progress from week to week

The reason for taking weekly averages is the aforementioned water weight. Fat loss is fairly linear, but weight loss on the scale isn't. You'll lose more water weight some days, and even gain water weight other days. So the scale number can go up, down, or even stay the same, while your fat loss is progressing normally. By taking a weekly average, you eliminate this factor and get a more accurate gauge of how fast you're losing weight.

Once you've taken averages for 2 weeks, you compare the two. If your average for week 1 is 156lbs and your average for week 2 is 155.8lbs, then you're losing too slow. If the average for week 1 is 156lbs and week 2 is 150lbs, you're probably losing too quickly. Try to aim for 1-2lbs of fat loss per week - 2lbs is more aggressive and will be trickier, so 1lbs is usually what most people go for. I wouldn't go over 2lbs as that's a bit too aggressive, and there's no point going under 1lbs as that's just gonna be slow.

If you're losing more than 2lbs a week, increase your daily food intake ever so slightly. If you're losing less than 1lbs a week, decrease your food intake ever so slightly. Keep adjusting every couple weeks as needed until you're losing at the desired rate. Adjust again if need be if the rate of fat loss slows down.