Help! I've lost about 4 pounds in a week!

emmanap91

I've been dieting and doing Insanity for over 2 months now, and I had dropped from 124 down to about 119.5-121 and was fluctuating around 120 for about two weeks. Sometimes I weighed more, sometimes slightly less - though never less than 118 pounds.

about two weeks ago I started doing 45-60 min elliptical workouts instead of Insanity a few times a week, and for the past week I've done nothing but elliptical workouts.

The scale keeps saying I weigh less! About 6 days ago I was happy when I saw I was at 118.5. Then a two days ago I was happy but a bit confused when I saw 117.5 on the scale. This morning I'm at 116!

I have been consuming fewer calories than normal for the past 4-5 days (only eating back about half of my workout calories), but I always thought I had been over-estimating my workout calories anyway.

Basically, are these pounds water weight, OR am I actually losing fat faster now because I'm doing more/longer cardio workouts (Insanity is good, but it really boils down to about 15-25 mins of actual cardio), OR are my muscles getting smaller because I'm not doing Insanity (which has a lot of bodyweight resistance exercises built in).

I'm worried it's the last one, but I set the elliptical to 15/20 resistance and do the "Random Hills" workouts, so I thought I was doing pretty good for resistance training, and even HIIT (super high resistance on hills, then it drops to almost nothing for a little while, rinse, repeat).

I just don't understand how I could be losing water weight or fat so quickly - I started birth control about a month and a half ago, and birth control generally makes women retain water and fat. And I don't want my weight loss to be through muscle atrophy!

HELP!! Thanks in advance.



EDIT: And I generally estimate about 10-11 calories per minute on the elliptical, because the machine way overestimates and says I'm doing 900-1100 cals per minute (which is darn near impossible for my size, I think). I was estimating slightly more for the Insanity workouts, probably closer to 12 cals per minute, so that could be part of it too - maybe I'm more accurately estimating calories burned, on top of eating back fewer calories?

Yanicka1

Sound like a whoosh effect weight loss Weight loss is not linear. Enjoy it.

cwolfman13

a week isn't long enough to determine anything...keep an eye on it, if it continues to trend like that just up your intake a little.

emmanap91

Thanks for the input, Yanicka and wolfman - I'll try not to panic for now and monitor my weight for another week or so.