Scale not going down, help please?!

calebespnsmommie

Okay, so here is the deal with my situation. I have my thing set to 1200 calories a day. I have not seen the scale go down in a coulple of weeks. In fact it will go up and down between the same three pounds. My question is what am I doing wrong/what can I change to start loosing weight again. My food/exercise diary is open so feel free to take a look. Please just remember, I am a girl which means I have feelings. However, I would like people to be honest with me

I drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.. I put a small amount of regular tea in there for some flavor and a tad bit of lemon juice. The past week I have not been eating my normal fruits and veggies like I usually do.. but after groceries I will be back to the fruits and veggies all the time!

As for workouts I do cardio and strength training. Here is a link of the cardio workout I have been doing for the past week. I sweat a lot, a lot more then doing the 30 day shred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msilouLqxSM

I also do leslie sansone walking dvds, the two and three times. I have started running in place when she walks during the video. Also I do different thing with weights I have at home. I have 5 pound weights. I logged what exercises I did the other day with my weights. I also do an ab exericse that is 13 mins long that is on our tv service. Then I do V sit ab twist with a ball and rgular crunches, bicycles and the bridge.

So my question is.. does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to change things up a little bit. Maybe change my calorie count, do more cardio, or stick with what I am doing and just give my body time to change. I can tell I am defiantly putting on muscle, my arms and legs are extremely muscular.

I do have before pictures.. and I have a picture of about a month ago. I am going to post a picture I took the other day on my profile. I started at a weight of 208 and totally out of shape. I always have smaller legs but now they are muscle. I was a size 20 and now I am a size 12/14 in womens and a 15 in juniors. A shirt size xxl/xl and now I wear a M/L.

If anyone wants to inbox me that would be fine to.. thank you in advance everyone.

TS65

Your diary isn't open.

bjohs

Okay, so here is the deal with my situation. I have my thing set to 1200 calories a day. I have not seen the scale go down in a coulple of weeks. In fact it will go up and down between the same three pounds. My question is what am I doing wrong/what can I change to start loosing weight again. My food/exercise diary is open so feel free to take a look. Please just remember, I am a girl which means I have feelings. However, I would like people to be honest with me

I drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.. I put a small amount of regular tea in there for some flavor and a tad bit of lemon juice. The past week I have not been eating my normal fruits and veggies like I usually do.. but after groceries I will be back to the fruits and veggies all the time!

As for workouts I do cardio and strength training. Here is a link of the cardio workout I have been doing for the past week. I sweat a lot, a lot more then doing the 30 day shred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msilouLqxSM

I also do leslie sansone walking dvds, the two and three times. I have started running in place when she walks during the video. Also I do different thing with weights I have at home. I have 5 pound weights. I logged what exercises I did the other day with my weights. I also do an ab exericse that is 13 mins long that is on our tv service. Then I do V sit ab twist with a ball and rgular crunches, bicycles and the bridge.

So my question is.. does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to change things up a little bit. Maybe change my calorie count, do more cardio, or stick with what I am doing and just give my body time to change. I can tell I am defiantly putting on muscle, my arms and legs are extremely muscular.

I do have before pictures.. and I have a picture of about a month ago. I am going to post a picture I took the other day on my profile. I started at a weight of 208 and totally out of shape. I always have smaller legs but now they are muscle. I was a size 20 and now I am a size 12/14 in womens and a 15 in juniors. A shirt size xxl/xl and now I wear a M/L.

If anyone wants to inbox me that would be fine to.. thank you in advance everyone.

I am unable to view your food diary but my best guess is that the answer will lie there. Once I cut back on the amount of exercise and turned a critical eye to my food intake, I lost weight quickly. Losing weight is 80% effort on diet and 20% effort on exercise. Try cutting out most processed foods and add more vegetables each day. Have some fruit too, but not as much as veggies. Take a good hard look at your food choices... it makes a big difference. Good luck!

Lesliecs

I'm no expert, but sounds like you're doing things right and congrats on your loss of 37 lbs.! That's awesome! You've obviously been losing inches if you've gone from size 20 to 12-14. Do you measure yourself? I just found recently that even though I hadn't lost one single lb. in several days, I still had lost of total of 2 inches in waist, bust and hips.

I've only been here for about 5 weeks, so I'm sure someone else with more experience will have some suggestions for you. Just don't lose your motivation! You look great!

fultzjaf

I am in the same place right now! I don't exercise as hard core as you but I totally feel the same way. I'm doing/eating the same things and still batteling the same few lbs back and forth. Good luck, hopefully some answers will help.

uberlaut

Are you eating your exercise calories?

Cause it's important.

Lleldiranne

Are you eating back your exercise calories? If you aren't eating at least some of them, you might not be getting enough calories or nutrients, making it harder to lose. Try eating back about half of your exercise calories to start, and see where that gets you (give it a few weeks for your body to adjust).

I also would suggest looking into a good multivitamin. It's hard for a woman to get all the nutrients her body needs on just 1200 calories a day. I just get the Kroger's generic women's daily vitamin, it's only about $5 for two months, and its' good enough that my OB approved it in place of prescription pre-natals. When your body is getting everything it needs, it's easier for it to let go of extra weight.

WifeMomDVM

A few suggestions:

Eat more calories - but make sure they are clean.

http://www.extremely-fit.com/fitness-tips/2011/01/8week-transition-diet/

Put down the 5 lb weights and pick up some 12 lb or 20 lb weights instead and read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Lifting-Women-Goddess/dp/1583333398/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312035171&sr=8-1

(don't get the kindle version - you'll want to be able to easily flip through the pages to see the photos)

Eat more protein and fiber (26 grams or more a day), less sodium (under 1500 mg/day) and less sugar (no more than 10% of your cals) So for example if you eat 1500 calories a day (I said eat more, remember) keep sugar under 37.5 grams a day.

Cheers!

calebespnsmommie

Sorry everyone for my food diary not being open. I just made it public. The last week I have not been eating as much fruits and veggies as I usually do. I defiantly am going to get a multi vit.

MoonIite

Limit your sodium intake to 1500 mg/a day.
You could be retaining water, which would account for the weight gain. I always see a 2-3 lb gain on the scale whenever I eat fast food because of the sodium content.

Hourglass25

Just took a look at your diary and it looks like you go over sodium a lot or stay right on target. cut down your sodium to about 1500 which means less processed foods. Your carbs are also a little high in some days. Drink more water at leased half your weight in ounces. good luck and congrats on your weight loss:)

TS65

Easy - your net calories on most days is less than 1000. Eat more! **It goes against everything we THINK we know, but to lose weight, you HAVE to fuel your body (in other words, EAT).

To make this easy on yourself, check your settings.

When I first started, I had my settings wrong. I didn't realize it would make a HUGE difference.

Then, I found this post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

I was set at sedentary, but was working out 3-4 days a week for an hour - which meant I was really ACTIVE. Once I re-set myself for active AND started eating my exercise calories, the weight started coming off.

Here's a paraphrase:

-1200 calories is a generic number. It's not right for everyone. It's a baseline minimum given out as a floor by MFP based on prior research by the medical community. NOT everyone will need a minimum of 1200, very small people can go under, and bigger people need more.
...
If you have a desk job, and do very little walking throughout the day and don't really perform any sports or physical activities, then you are sedentary.

If you do some walking every day (or at least 4 days a week) or other light activity for at least 30 minutes cumulative at least 4 times a week, you are lightly active.

If you do 60 minutes of light activity 5 days a week or do some kind of sport that requires walking or light jogging (say swimming or mailman or warehouse employee) then you are active.

If you do a physically demanding activity (one that makes you sweat) for 4 days a week or more and for more than 1 hour a day, you are very active (like a coach that runs drills or you play volleyball).

When in doubt, go down 1 level, you'd rather burn more than you think than less.

~ ~ ~

Also...

Generally someone with a BMI over 32 can do a 1000 calorie a day (2 lbs a week) deficit

With a BMI of 30 to 32 a deficit of 750 calories is generally correct (about 1.5 lbs a week)

With a BMI of 28 to 30 a deficit of 500 calories is about right (about 1 lb a week)

With a BMI of 26 to 28 a deficit of about 300 calories is perfect (about 1/2 lb a week)

and below 26... well this is where we get fuzzy. See now you're no longer talking about being overweight, so while it's still ok to have a small deficit, you really should shift your focus more towards muscle building, and reducing fat. This means it is EXTRA important to eat your exercise calories as your body needs to KNOW it's ok to burn fat stores, and the only way it will know is if you keep giving it the calories it needs to not enter the famine response (starvation mode).