Getting extremely frustrated!

dtoth1967

I have been trying to lose weight since September! I can't get past 25 lbs! I thought I was making headway finally (after a 4 week plateau) by losing 5 lbs. However, I gained 3 back! Help! I AM tracking everything! Food, drink, snacks, exercise, and according to this app, I should be losing not gaining! :-(:sad:

lizard053

1. Are you eating back exercise calories? If no, start doing so! If yes, start underestimating calories burned and overestimating how much food you eat. Or, only eat 2/3 or so of the exercise calories back.

2. Get rid of processed foods. All of them are junk, even "diet" food. (Like lean cuisine and snackwells, etc.)

3. Be brutally honest with yourself. Measure everything. Log everything, including that tiny taste while cooking.

4. Kick up the exercise routine. Up your weights, increase your intensity, try a new class. Make a change in your routine. If it's become "routine" it's time to change!

5. Drink more water. I'm a fan of the whole 1/2 your weight in pounds as ounces of water. Even though I don't weigh that much, I drink about a gallon a day of pure water. Any flavored stuff gets logged as something else.

Hope something here helps!

Pandadora

Staring at a number on a scale all the time can be frustrating. How do your clothes fit? If your exercising properly and building muscle that can make you gain weight even if your losing fat because muscle is denser than fat.

Don't get discouraged just try using a seamstress tape to take your measurements and track that too instead of focusing on your weight.

When I began college I lost a dress size or so without losing any weight because of the extra walking I was doing between classes and around town.

Fat to muscle is a gradual change and not always reflected well on the scale but you can feel a difference and sometimes with loosening clothing see it too.

Hang in there and be proud of your progress.

Captain_Tightpants

Have you lost 10% or more of your original starting weight? If so you may need to go back and reset goals so your daily calorie allowance is lower.

Other than that, switch things up. Change your foods and exercise completely. Trick your body out of the comfortable balance it's settled into.