Worried about losing weight

[Machete]

I'm concerned about my weightloss. Should I be worried that I'm losing almost 6 pounds a week?

My exercise regime involves: -

Sunday: One hour of plyometrics and stretching in the morning
Monday: One hour of upper body weight training in the morning and one and a half hours of muay thai in the evening
Tuesday: One hour of lower body weight training in the morning
Wednesday: One hour of plyometrics and stretching in the morning
Thursday: One hour of upper body weight training in the morning and one and a half hours of muay thai in the evening
Friday: One hour of lower body weight training in the morning
Saturday: One hour of judo followed one hour later by two hours of muay thai (late morning to early afternoon).

On weeks 4, 12, 20, 28 etc I deload my weight training sessions
On weeks 8, 16, 24, 32 etc I don't do any weight training or plyometrics

I get about 6 to 8 hours sleep a day

My diet has gone from being a typical junk food diet to a much more healthier and balanced one. I don't count calories (and I guess I'm eating about the same weight in food as before) but I'm doing things like snacking on fruit instead of crisps/potato chips, substituting rye bread for white, and eating more vegetables. I'm not puritanical about my diet and I do allow myself the occassional treat.

Anway...

I rarely weigh myself but I did today and I was shocked to discover that I've been losing almost 6 pounds per week. I can't help but think much of this is probably water weight and I'm worried that some of it is muscle.

My actual weight isn't of any concern to me as long as I'm healthy. But I'm worried that my weight loss is counterproductive to the strength gains I'm trying to make and that it might actually be harming my health.

Am I overreacting? Should I start eating more or exercising less?

[Asriel]

how many calories a day do you eat?

Any chance of laying out a typical day's food plan?

[BudoMonkey]

Yea, seconded. Also- we need numbers. How much do you weigh, how much have you lost, how tall and old are you, etc.

Being 5'11'', and going down from 220-214-208 is not nearly as scary as say being the same height and going down from 170-154-148-142, y'know?

I had a similiar sort of situation. I'm 6'0'', and in the last year and a half I went from 200 down to 155Ibs. What I found was when I hit 155 I had to completely re-tool how I eat to maintain that weight because it requires a drastically different diet to maintain as compared to losing weight. Now with all the cardio I do (similiar to yours), I have to eat like a stoned hippo not to keep losing. At one point I became so regimented in the diet that caused me to lose the weight in the first place that I dropped to 145, which was kinda scary.

You should check out this website:

www.thedailyplate.com

You can enter your current height/weight and your current weight goals, and it will calculate and track how many calories you need to take in on a daily basis to gain/maintain. Check it out. It will also let you factor in the cals burned in excercising. You are probably like I was; you're just not eating enough.

[Teh El Macho]

How long have you been losing weight? To the best of your recollection, when do you think it started?

[Machete]

Here's a typical day of eating for me.

1st Breakfast: Banana and approx. two dozen nuts
2nd Breakfast: Rye bread sandwich with chickpea pate, spinach, and cucumber
1st Lunch: An apple or two to three strawberries and a packet of beef jerky or biltong
2nd Lunch: Rye bread sandwich with chickpea pate, spinach, and cucumber
1st Dinner: Half a plate of brown rice with chicken or fish and assorted vegetables
2nd Dinner: Half a plate of brown rice with chicken or fish and assorted vegetables

In terms of drinking throughout the typical day, I might have

2 cups of green or peppermint tea
1 can of diet coke
1 pint of skimmed milk
3 glasses of water
1 glass of apple, orange, or pomegranate juice

Going by this information, I ingest about 1,500 calories from food and about 400 calories from drink for a total intake of 1,900 calories per day.

I'm 5'11" and 31 years old. Nine weeks ago when I began exercising (after recovering from a dislocated shoulder) I weighed 210 to 215 lbs. For about five weeks I was losing about two pounds per week.

Approximately four weeks ago, I weighed about 200 to 205 lbs. Fast forward to now and I weigh 182 lbs. So my biggest weight loss has occured in the last month.

I'm sorry that I can't be more accurate with my calories or weightloss. I'm terrible at keeping records.

Edited to add: For the last seven weeks I've slowly been making progress with my weight lifting. But this week, I feel that I've gone back three weeks. At first I put it down to my week of resting. But I think it may be related to my weight loss.

[Little Lamb]

Friend, you might have a tapeworm.

But seriously, this is probably a simple matter of eating more. Get a tub of that whey protein and mix it with whole milk. Broil a rib steak or two. Bake some femur bones and spread the marrow on toast with crispy french sea salt...God I'm hungry.

[BudoMonkey]

Seconding the whey protein.

Dude, 1900 cals is not enough at all. That is exactly the kind of diet you would be on to lose weight. The average approximated cals listed on every 'nutrition facts' label known to man is 2000, so I don't know why you think you could maintain weight eating any less than that.
And that number is for normal people who do not excercise constantly and burn hundreds of calories every day. You probably need to be eating more like 2,500 - 2,800 cals, and could probably be taking in a bit more dietary fat and protein judging by your regular eating. Go to my above post, and use the link I provided to see how much food you should take in.

182 is a good weight for someone your height, anyways, but if you don't want to keep losing more (which you will at this rate) you are gonna have to start stuffing your face and factoring in what you burn in a day. My personal favorite is cereal. If I need to get a couple hundred more cals in by the end of the day, I load up on cereal w/ skim milk. Raisin bran, lucki charms, fuckin cookie crisp, anything. Fruit too. By a big old fruit salad and snack on it all day long.

[Teh El Macho]

****, 1900 is the barebones minimum I need to ingest at 165lbs. Hell, that was my minimum when I was 145lbs. I cannot imagine how you get going with that... and lift at stay at 180lbs coming from 210+/- lbs.

Machete, your two breakfasts are horribly little. You went by well as your body was shedding body fat, but at 180-something, it's time to feed it some more. I'd suggest you do the following modifications asap (alternate between the options from one day to another to make it interesting or stick to the one that contains the most calories.)

Additions to breakfast #1 (either option mixed with 4-8oz of plain, whole milk yogurt, some splenda and 1/2 teaspoon of peanut butter if you are not allergic to it.)

Option 1) 1/4 cup of microwaved plain (no sugar) oatmeal
Option 2) 1/2 microwaved sweet potatoe (yam) *

* to cook the sweet potatoe, pinch it several times with a fork, don't peel it. Soak it briefly and wrap it tightly in wax paper. Then, put it on the microwave for 3 minutes. Check if it's mushy. If not, soak it again, re-wrap it and microwave it again for 2 minutes.

Additions to breakfast #2

* Add some chicken out of a can into your sandwich and choose one of the following:

Option 1) Two boiled eggs
Option 2) 1 egg fried (yes, fried) and scrambled with some tomatoes and greens (brocolli, turnip greens or asparragus.)
Option 3) A slightly fried piece of tofu topped with some turnip greens or diced tomatoes.
Option 4). 8oz of plain, whole milk yogurt with some splenda and nuts.


Additions to 2nd Lunch:

Add some chicken to that, man.


Before zzz-time snack:

Option 1) 8 oz of plain, whole milk yogurt and splenda
Option 2) 1-2 boiled eggs.

[Yohan]

As they have all said, eat more. You should add in about 500 calories a day to hit 2500 calories a day. TEM's suggestions are rock solid.

Additionally, if you haven't, you should absolutely get your BF% checked.

[Machete]

Thanks for all the great advice! I'm going to up my calorie intake by taking on TEM's and Budomonkey's suggestions. Hopefully this will even out my weight.