I weigh myself every day, controlling as many variables as possible. The last few days have been:
6/19 - 220.0
6/20 - 219.5
6/21 - 216.5
6/22 - 215.0
6/23 - 212.5
6/24 - 210.0
I’ve been trying to lose weight, so I’m not exactly complaining, but I’m aware that several nasty conditions are presaged by rapid weight loss. Should I take this as a blessing from the diet gods, or check for tumors?
Hal
You have to burn 3500 calories in order to lose 1 pound of fat. Unless you’ve been completely starving yourself, or doing lots of vigorous excersize for several hours every day, or you’ve had a really bad case of the runs it would appear that something is wrong with you medically.
In case you need to hear it twice, I’ll second what Surreal said. Let me also add: until you get to the doctor, start drinking water, because you’ve got to be dehydrated to be losing that much (water) weight so quickly - and dehydration is not an insignificant thing. Remember, if you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. Your body loses fluids even without you being aware of it. You must replace them to stay healthy.
Eek! :eek:
Hie thee to a Dr, pronto.
Perhaps you’ve gotten lucky, but a check up is probably a good idea. Really.
Yeah, go see a doctor.
10 pounds in less then a week sounds like a reason to worry to me. Go get a check up. You should get one before you start trying to lose weight anyway. (by the way, what have you been doing to try to lose weight?)
Unless a gypsy put a curse on you.:eek: In that case, seek out an old gypsy.
You don’t have a roomate who might be futzing with the scale, do you?
I lost 25 pounds in two weeks when I became diabetic. Been peeing a lot lately? Get to a doctor.
Thanks for your comments, as unwelcome as they are. To answer the questions:
I’m drinking about two quarts of iced tea a day. I’ve been eating only when hungry, and picking up excercise a bit; nothing ridiculous. I’m 6’4" and 25 years old, so I’m not morbidly out of shape to begin with. No roommate, and no gypsies, though I haven’t been helping little old ladies across the street. Not peeing any more than usual, and if I wasn’t tracking my weight I wouldn’t have noticed anything.
Hal
Related to what Mynn said, it’s possible your scale isn’t working correctly.
But 10 pounds in 5 days! Definitely worth checking with a doctor.
The secret to losing weight is pooping more than you eat. Your chart looks like any week for me, what it’s missing is the upswings. Over the course of a month or two, the general trend is downward, but I hit plateaus and sudden drops and the occasional climb. I’ll do a week with great cardio and a little lifting and gain weight! It drives me crazy, there seems to be no rhyme or reason at times. But I’m excercising, and eating fairly right, yadda, yadda, yadda. I did ask a doc about it, he quizzed me a bit, and then said (for my case) it’s normal.
You seem to have missed the part in nursing school where they teach you that muscle weighs more than fat, Carmen (it’s denser). If you work out and lose fat but increase muscle, then the scale may show an increase. Then the question becomes: what is your body fat? What is your BMI (Body mass index)? What are your measurements?
For a person to lose 10 pounds in 5 days is a bit unusual, even if they are over 200 pounds to begin with. As Surreal correctly pointed out, you must burn 3500 calories more than you take in to lose a pound. Most people don’t even burn (or consume!) 3500 a day, let alone an average of 7000 more than they have consumed in a day! In other words, most of it has to be water weight (if the scale is correct). I think the diabetes angle is definitely worth checking out.
And Hal (Winsling), why are our comments unwelcome if you solicited them in your OP? People are just showing concern for you, not judging you.
Here’s a factor you might have overlooked: what was your diet like on the 16/17/18? By any chance, were you chowing down on a lot of cold cuts, dill pickles, popcorn, fast food of any kind, etc?
Because you could have been holding onto a good bit of ‘extra’ water weigh if you’d had a high intake of salt. Then if you stopped the salt intake (maybe not deliberately, just as a sideproduct of not eating much), your body will manage to get rid of the salt AND all the extra water in just a day or two.
One time when I was in college I ate an entire jar of jumbo ‘stone’ olives – the pickled green kind. And then I started sipping the left over brine – it just tasted sooooo good for some reason. Naturally all the rest of that day I had a raging thirst, glass after glass of water with no ‘output.’
The next morning I was BLOATED. No kidding, my waist band was tight, I had to fasten my watch on another hole, I couldn’t even get my feet into my usual shoes.
I stepped on the scale: I had gained 7 pounds since the previous morning!
Horrors! But I just kept drinking water, and at some point I guess I’d added enough water to allow my kidneys to ‘waste’ it excreting the salt.
As in, the second night I had to hit the bathroom just about every hour on the hour.
The following morning my weight was back down to where it’s been before.
So, there’s a 7 pound up and down over a 48 hour period.
Similarly, I know when I go back on Atkins, I always lose 5-6 pounds in the first three days. Apparently you need more water in your system to handle a carbohydrate laden diet than one with very little, so again your system dumps the extra water.
Bottom line, I personally wouldn’t bother to see my doctor unless the trend persisted for at least a full week, maybe 10 days.
I wasn’t clear enough; I appriciate the concern, but I’d much rather hear that there’s nothing wrong. Debilitating diseases are unwelcome no matter who bears the tidings.
Please accept my apologies if you felt slighted.
Hal
Weight does often fluctuate much more than you would expect on a calories-consumed/calories burned basis. Some common reasons have been provided here, ie salt/water issues.
I’d make a doctor’s appointment, but I might also check on another scale just to see, and I’d keep tracking the weight each day. You might be able to cancel the appointment before going.
in the first week of dieting to lose a couple of pounds is possible (though 10 is alittle higher than i would expect ). then your weight loss should slow down considerably such that on a second week you would probably lose no more than about 3 lbs.
for me, when i go on a diet i lose about 5 - 7 lbs the first week and then i am lucky if i can keep losing at rate of 1 lb per week 
thats cuz your body readjusts to the new caloric intake.
I lost that much that fast when I had a Mental Health Incident, and was neither eating nor sleeping for about a week. I went to the doctor. Maybe you sould go to the doctor, too.
Many weight loss experts suggest weighing no more often than weekly. The reason is that, depending on what’s in your guts, water, air, and other variouable, your weight can change quite a bit from day to day, without any meaningful change.
I would guess that this is just a statistical blip. We’re barely looking at a week. Perhaps you were bloated when the week started.
Can we assume you are on the very same scale, in the very same place, nekkid, at the same time every day?