I lost 5lbs in a week

maczoe04

Normal? Or beginners luck?

AnnPT77

You're doing fine.

First week of new routine? It's quite common to see a bigger drop than one will see going forward from there. There's less food in the digestive tract on its way to becoming waste when we're eating less overall, plus we tend to drop water weight at the start. Some of the loss will be fat loss if calorie level is dialed in, but probably not all.

Hang in there for 4-6 weeks, then look at average loss per week. (Use whole menstrual cycles to compare weight changes, if you have those.) Averaging over many weeks is a better gauge, because weight loss is uneven, even when fat loss is happening well.

By the way: Another common pattern is a big-ish drop at first, then a seeming scale stall. That's no big deal: If there's a larger water weight drop at the start, it can rebalance a little later, and mask ongoing gradual fat loss on the bodyweight scale. Wait it out.

Best wishes!

P.S. Good read, especially the article linked in the first post:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

yirara

Everything the lovely AnnPT77 wrote.

If you ever wonder whether a very sudden bigger drop or gain is real do a reality check. Say you adhered to your diet, and then you’re up 3lbs from one morning to the next. It takes roughtly 3500calories to gain or lose 1lbs. Thus to have an actual fat gain you’d need to have eaten 3* 3500 calories over your maintenance.

csplatt

It’s water weight + less waste in your intestines + etc. Carry on and don’t be upset if that kind of big drop doesn’t happen again.