Losing inches first before pounds?

Would you rather know that your car is getting 40 mpg or that it can get you from point A to point B?

Weight is a terrible way to measure health. Size is not much better. The best is body composition. If you're losing size, you're more than likely getting to a better body composition. Fat takes up more space than the same weight in muscle. So, you may be losing fat from your torso and legs and adding muscle to your legs.

You're right to say that most people lose weight first and size later. Much of that comes from the way most people approach diet and exercise. They start watching calories and slowly increase their physical activity. Diet is going to lead to fat loss. Since they are slowly ramping up the physical activity, the muscle gain (re-gained if lost through diet) comes later. It sounds like you've got a good program going.

I managed to drop 5 inches off my waist without losing a pound. A body scan showed significant fat loss and decent muscular gain. I hope to keep doing that to get to my body composition goal (<12% body fat). I could care less what my weight is when I get to that goal. You shouldn't care what your weight is, so long as you're getting to a healthy body composition.

I tend to lose inches before lbs! And that's how I like it I'd much rather see the results than just read them! :happy:

For my whole first round of P90X I lost maybe 4.5 pounds but a ton of inches.. about 4" off of my waist and hips (if not more can't remember) and everywhere else. The weight itself started coming off after that

After my son was born I did Insanity. I lost maybe a pound the first month, but dropped from a size 9 to a size 5!

yep Im in that category too. I did P90x last winter and lost 5 inches in the first month 3 of them from my waist. I never did lose any weight throughout the entire 90 days. Inches are good weight will come later

If you're doing an exercise regime that's new to you, you sometimes find your muscles retain fluid as water transmits glycogen to restore stored energy and repair muscle tissue.

How long does this last for?

When I tried starting P90X, and again when I tried started Insanity, I noticed that I would either lose a very minimal amount of weight or I would gain a small amount of weight in those first two weeks, yet I would start noticing a little bit of trimming in some areas.

When you are trying a new program, especially something physically demanding and strenuous, your muscles are trying to heal. In the effort to heal, your muscles are retaining water, and water isn't light.

If you are basing your success on the number on your scale, then good ol' fashioned biology is doing what it can to bring you down a peg.

As a note, I'm not a professional, and this is something that I paraphrased from a professional..........if I got anything wrong, please let me know.

My first 90 days of P90X I lost about 4.5 pounds only but a TON of inches. After that the scale also went down a lot