So I'm wondering how much of my "loss" is water weight over the past 2 days. 2 days ago I decided to change my diet, not all that drastically, but I went from eating 60% healthy choices and portions to 90% healthy choices and portions by eating mainly whole foods (protein, veggies, fruit and unprocessed whole grains) with a little treat here and there and I've stopped counting my calories. I've also done a 30 minute weight lifting circuit the past 2 days to supplement my walk/runs because I keep hearing time and time again that muscle burns fat, and that building muscle can up your metabolism.

On monday morning (as well as the saturday and sunday before) I weighed 193, tuesday I was 191 and today I'm 189. Since it's going so quickly i'm assuming this first chunk of weight is water weight, however I've dealt with "water weight" in the past and usually it's not more than a pound or 2. Is it too soon to hope that some of the 4 pounds is actual fat? I would understand this being all water weight if I changed my diet/exercise drastically but I haven't. It's a decently sizeable change but nothing that I would consider to be "drastic." It's just that it seems like it's going to quickly to be actual fat. Usually I only lose a pound or so a week....

Just curious for opinions and experiences i guess

You lose a lot more than water weight or fat weight when you lose.

You lose fat, muscle, water, tissues, etc. It really depends, I've lost over 10 lbs in a single week but it is rarity. Since your body is mostly water, you can lose a lot of water weight but you can't really measure how much weight you loss is fat unless you do a reliable fat measurement test. You can estimate fat loss though with other methods such as electrical impediment tool such as a handheld device or a scale that you step on. They aren't extremely accurate but they are able to do a decent job at measuring the change in body fat even if they can't measure your exact body fat.

It is a confusing question, which is why the scale is not always the most accurate indicator of how much improvement you're making to your health when you practice healthy eating and exercise habits. The body is made up mostly of water, of course, (60% or so, in fact), and it makes it even more confusing that adipose (fat) tissue also has a small amount of water in it. Essentially, any time the body mass decreases, you will be losing some amount of water. A 110-pound woman carries a lot less water in her body than a 180-pound woman.

My understanding is that a pound of fat = about 3500 calories. So, in order to lose a pound of fat, you will have to have a calorie deficit of 3500 calories. In order to assess how much of your loss is fat, you can estimate how many calories you consumed and subtract how many calories you estimate you burned. This is, of course, largely guesswork since you're not actively tracking calorie intake and I don't believe that you've had your basal metabolic rate checked. Unless all you're doing all day is high intensity exercise, it's highly unlikely that you had a two-day calorie deficit of 14,000 calories. Even with a lot of high intensity exercise and a low calorie intake, it's not likely that you would have this type of deficit. However, it may be possible that you have had a 3500 calorie deficit in two days, resulting in the loss of a pound of fat and three pounds of "other" material.

It sounds like you're doing all of the right things, though. So, I would encourage you to just enjoy watching the scale go down. As long as you're protecting your health by providing your body with adequate nutrition, I think that the lower numbers are something to celebrate. It helps for those times when the scale goes up inexplicably.

Yeah I guess I already knew that there was no ultimate way to tell! lol Just thinking outload I suppose and thankyou so much for the feedback!!

I think you have to remember though that water does take up volume and weight. Carrying alot of extra water around can't be all that great for you either, so when a pound is gone for good, even if it's only half (or less) fat, it's still a pound gone. It still "counts." You do want to minimize muscle loss, but that is accomplished by eating sufficient protein and exercise.

I think the time to discount water weight isn't during loss, it's when you see a temporary gain that you're pretty sure is "just" water, like during TOM, or a sodium spike. Drink extra water (water removes water), watch your sodium, and take a little extra notice of what you've been eating and will be eating.

This past weekend I had chinese food (quite a bit of it, and not the best caloric choices). Sunday Morning, I was up 9 lbs. I was discouraged, and suspected that it might not all be water weight, but I stayed calm, drank as much water as I could, and logged my calories. By Monday night (my weigh-in at TOPS) I had lost 7 of it. This morning I see that I've dropped another 4 lbs (since yesterday morning). What a relief!