You're not eating enough and exercising too much! You're trying to lose it too fast and that's a recipe for disaster. I have lost 40 pounds (entirely of fat; I retained all muscle), and it has taken me 15 months to do it. Slow and steady wins the race. I even had months where I didn't lose at all and some where I gained a bit, because I think your body needs periodic breaks on the way down. It just shows it "ok, you're not going to be starving all the time. See, you have enough to maintain right now." Then after a while you can go for a little more loss. So, if I were you, I'd keep doing everything the same for one month, and record every scrap you put in your mouth (I like Fitday.com and it's free, others like SparkPeople, etc.) and what calories you burn in exercise. You need to see what your maintenance calorie level is. The way I did this is to take the average calories I ate and the average calories I burned per day from the month's worth of data and took the difference. This gives you your net caloric intake. Then, you take your average weekly weight change and multiply it by 500 calories. That is the difference between your net caloric intake and your maintenance calorie needs. For example, say you eat an average of 1500 calories per day for the month, and your average exercise expenditure is 200 calories per day. That's a net caloric intake of 1300 calories per day. Now suppose during the month you lose two pounds. That means your average weekly weight change is -0.5. If you multiply this by 500 calories, you'll see that you are averaging a caloric deficit of 250 calories per day. Add that to your average net caloric intake and you have your maintenance calorie needs: 1300 + 250 = 1550. So if you didn't do any exercise and you ate 1550 calories a day on average, you would neither lose nor gain. So if you want to lose a little faster, you can eat a little less and/or burn a little more in exercise. In the above example, it's hard to eat less than 1500 per day and get proper nutrition when you're exercising a lot, so probably the thing to do would be to try to increase your workouts by about 50%, and you should boost your loss to 3/4 of a pound per week. You don't know what your personal calorie needs are, so it's hard to determine how to create a calorie deficit. Your body needs time to adjust to this incredibly rapid weight loss, so use that time to figure out what your caloric needs are and you can make progress from there. I strongly discourage you going below 1200 net calories per day, and urge you to never go below 1000 net calories per day. Your internal organs need a certain amount to create health, and they don't care that you're carrying lots of energy on your hips already. That's only part of the equation-- they need the nutrients in food-- real food! I've had to reduce my carb intake personally to make more progress, so you might consider replacing the bread in your sandwich and the rice at your dinner with extra helpings of vegetables. Your body needs carbs, but it doesn't need starch or grain or sugar. It's designed to get them in the form of vegetables. More is better when it comes to vegetables! Never reduce veggie intake to cut calories! It'll also help you preserve muscle mass if you eat protein right before and right after you work out. Since you don't have a lot of money, some inexpensive options for that would be like 1-2 oz. deli meat before you work out and 1/2 cup of cottage cheese for right after. Just 6-10 grams of protein right before and right after your workout can make all the difference in the world between losing muscle and losing fat. Oh, and don't let lack of money stop you from doing strength exercises-- you can do sit-ups, push-ups and squats with absolutely no equipment, arm dips with only a chair, and you can do pull-ups if you find a trail/playground with a bar. Strength training NOW banks bone density and muscle mass for later. Women absolutely NEED strength training to preserve their metabolisms as they age and prevent them from getting frail and suffering from bone loss. DON'T sacrifice your muscle mass for some number on a scale. A 125 pound woman with 90 pounds of lean mass is WAY worse off than a 145 pound woman with 110 pounds of lean mass. Plus, remember that fat won't help you haul your butt around like muscle will and muscle burns calories just sitting there, so it's a double or triple bonus! Hope all of this has been helpful. So eat something and go put on some muscle!