Am I doing it wrong?

swagson

I've been on a diet, or, been 'changing my lifestyle' for three weeks so far. And there's been no change. I haven't lost a pound. What gives? I'm not going over my calorie intake. I'm going over how much protein I eat-- by about 22 or maybe 33; (but not every day) is that the problem? What can I do? I've been doing my excersize, which is thirty minutes on an elliptical. Do I just need to do more...?? I'm not doing nothing the entire day, either; I have school and that's draining. On the weekends, I won't deny, I just lay around and my excersize is the only thing I do.

If it helps I'm 230 pounds, female, and 5.8 ft. tall.

Maple669

Hmm...have you been strength training? Because muscle weighs more than fat...maybe you are just replacing your fat weight with muscle weight?

stukawife

You need to be sure that you are accurately measuring nd recording what you are eating. Don't guess on the portion size. Don't try adn fool yourself by not listing everything. Regroup and keep going. Once you are on track and carefully measuring dn recording teh weight will drop off. Add exersize and it will go faster.

chollingshed74

what about water intake?

rhonda1960

How many calories do you get per day? It helped me to make my diary public where I could be given spot on advice. You could be choosing high sodium foods that increases water retention.

ajanmillie

I use the elliptical every day. What setting do you put it on? Your body can get used to a workout pretty quickly too. I also do strength training. maybe you can try that? I agree with the poster before me. but also up your intensity and see if that works. I started using the elliptical at your same weight too.

klewis81

1) be very careful of portion sizes. It was really eye-opening to see how much I was eating when I first started weighing and measuring everything. 2) If you feel comfortable, open up your diary so we could see and offer up suggestions.

drvvork

Maybe it's your balance (carbs, proteins, etc.... ) Try taking Jillian Michael's test to see what type of metabolizer you are. It helped me with my settings and saw (and see) results. It might be worth a try.

http://caloriecount.about.com/metabolic-types-eating-ft93247

Judontmesswithme

A few things: I have been on-again-off-again losing weight-gaining weight for a long time. Nobody knows exactly what is causing this for your situation, but I can give you a few suggestions. First off, you said you do 30 minutes on the elliptical machine every day. You could try doing something different every other day or so, because it could be that your body is actually getting used to that particular exercise and is hitting a "plateau."

Also, did you try eating more smaller meals each day? Everyone I've ever met who has tried this has lost quite a bit of weight. It's tough to do this depending on what you do for a living, but it can't hurt to try. Eat a good breakfast in the morning, and every few hours eat something healthy. Don't let your body feel like it's being starved, or you'll want to increase the portions more times each day. The idea is to make them all small, even if it's 5 or 6 smaller meals. I hope this makes sense.

Anyway good luck. I'm sure you'll get to where you want to be!

katylee51

hi, I am new and have only been doing this for a week. I am finding it hard to stay on track. I am not keeping up with logging my food and exercise. When my husband is home from being offshore I am Not eating right and getting the exercise I should be. I need someone to get on my butt and make me stay on track. I don't know what to do sometimes. The only friends I currently have here are my niece and nephew that got me started on this. To them I am very grateful. I know this will work for me because i can eat things and track the calories and exercise and see right away what i have used up. But sometimes I need a good stiff kick to keep me on track. so, anyone wanna play bad cop and help me stay on track. I have 4 bad disc in my back and a pinched nerve in my neck so some exercises are just not possible, but i know someone out there can give me some tips on what i can do besides walking the dog and doing the yardwork. With hubby gone so much the yardwork is up to me, and that works out ok, but there has got to be some other things i can do for exercise. HELP.....I need lots of support and many butt kicks.

swagson

Wow! First of all, I am surprised to come back to so many responses. Thank you all.

@Maple; Yes, I think so.

@stukawife; Of course. Thank you. I will try to be more intent on accurately measuring things.

@chollingshed; I've been having around five glasses a day -- I haven't had as many as I should be, that's for sure.

@rhonda; I'm supposed to have 1300 a day but I've often stopped at 1000 or 800 because my protein, by that time, is already -1 or so. Most of the time, I think at least? haha. today I didn't do so well.

@ajanmillie; I'm actually at the max setting for my elliptical -- which is ten. I start at eight for the first ten or five minutes, then go to nine, and after one minute of going on nine, I go to ten for the rest of the 30 minutes. Sometimes by 20 minutes I'll go back to 8 -- just to rest, then for the last five minutes it's back to ten, and I run hard.

@klewis; Yeah, I think you're right. I think I might open it up, but I'm a bit hesitant, as I ate too much today and it's a bit embarrassing. But I want help, so I may as well.

@drvvok; Thanks so much for the link! I'll go through it!

@Judontmesswithme; Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for the weekends! Unfortunately I'm at school for most of the day so I can't do the small meals things during the week, since there's no breaks except for lunch. And I think you're right about that -- I have a stepper, maybe switching between elliptical training and that every other day would work? Although I'm unsure how long I'd spend on the stepper.

Thanks so much, all of you, I'll try even harder. I'm glad this community is so helpful.

cswr12345

I was looking at the responses and your question. Your body can adjust very rapidly to the same exercise. You either need to ramp it up, or make it longer or add weights to see a change. Also, eating too little can also cause you not to lose weight as your body goes into starvation mode. Are you eating at night? Good luck, don't give up.

kateopotato

I don't think you are eating enough, honestly! I am 5' 9" and 205 right now and my calorie limit is set to 1540. Try upping your calories a little bit (as crazy as it seems) and change your goal to 1 lb per week. And really try to drink more water!

swagson

I will try that, thank you!