Help!! still no weight loss-- motivation going down :(

beyond_beauty87

in the last 3 weeks, i have been exercising everyday doing 20-25 minutes of strength/weight training finishing with cardio. I have my calorie to 1830 and i'm always under. I don't eat the exercise calories allowed. I have only lost 2 lbs in the last 3 weeks and lost 5.5 inches overall. I know they say not to focus on the #on the scale better to look at how clothes better fit or inches lost. etc. However, i'm getting extremely frustrated. I'm counting my calories with everything i eat,been exercising every single day and i usually weight once a week but since my last weight in about 1.5 ago i have been weighing every morning in hopes of the scale moving down even a little bit. It hasn't, its stayed the same and the last time i weighed which was yesterday morning said i gained. I have a goal of losing 124lbs to get to my goal weight of 160lbs. I'm thinking at the weight i am i should be losing weight every week. I'm feeling very frustrated, unmotivated and just plain down. Putting so much hard work into something and not getting any results. I know the inches i lost are a great accomplishment but right now i would take pounds lost than anything right now. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

100lbstoloosefemale

first of all, in the early months STOP WEIGHING YOURSELF ,,,go with how your clothes are getting looser, and from what people say,,face thinner,,and measuring tape,, you may have gained muscle, hun add me, im in the same boat, 3 weeks ive been doing this,, and prolly lost 6lbs,,,its frustrating but we must not give up and give it time! i know i feel like i have to work out HARDER!!! i do the jillian miceals videos and i give up usually in the last 5 minutes,, keep trying

eawest42

I feel ya, sis! I had a full month when I started dieting before the scale moved. Then KAPOWEE, I dropped 15 pounds in a month. I had what my doctor called a "sticky throttle" where my body was used to having a certain amount of calories and when I cut it in half, I went into starvation mode and my body stored everything. It does not usually last more than a month.
Keep up the good work! 5.5 inches is amazing! You can do it!!!
Also, only weigh yourself once a week. Anything else is too much.

nycgurl92

I agree when you see your weight hasn't gone down the more motivation you'll loose.

FranceeC

what have you been eating? that has a HUGE effect on weight loss! and grest job with what you have lost!

beyond_beauty87

what have you been eating? that has a HUGE effect on weight loss! and grest job with what you have lost!

my food diary is open.-- today was a cheat day so i didn;t bother recording it

AlicynH

I was really frustrated because I hadn't lost anything in a month. Today I did my monthly measures and have lost 2 inches off my waist and 1.5 inches off my hips. If you're working out, you're probably building muscle. Don't give up. Even if you're not loosing weight, you are getting healthy. Good luck.

BSBgirl337

You might not be eating enough. You should always eat your minimum calories for the day. I'm agreeing with the other poster that your body thinks it is starving and storing it. And I listen to my body. If you exercise, and are still hungry, eat back some of your exercise calories. If you're not still hungry, just eat your minimum for the day.

You also might want to stop doing the strength training everyday. I am an advocate that everyone should do cardio everyday, especially those of us with a desk job because we sit in a chair all day long. However, with strength training, your muscles do need rest. Maybe try every other day? And at least rotate what muscle groups you work. If you do arms one day, do abs the next, etc.

Keep it up! It will come off! I try to just weight myself once a week because if the scale doesn't move, or it goes up a little, I get upset and it ruins my whole day!

sqwerly

You are not alone.

I am not losing lbs but i have lost inches. The biggest thing is i have noticed my endurance and energy has really increased, i am burning through my workouts where before i was barely finishing.

I was getting really upset as well but you need to look for what changes are taking place. Do not get discouraged. Keep making healthy choices and things will happen.

sun33082

Diary isn't open.

But you say you don't eat all of your calories and you don't eat back your exercise calories....that's one problem.

mkbledsoe

2 lbs in 3 weeks is totally not unreasonable. Quit expecting miracles.

BSBgirl337

Your diary isn't open, and I can't see it, but how often are you having cheat days? And are you cheating and having a piece of cake, or are you cheating and having a full meal at Red Robin? I ask because that may be why you're not losing weight. If you have a cheat day once a week, you are probably confusing your body if you are eating whatever you want all day.

sun33082

Now that your diary is open....log consistently, eat all of your calories, cut the carbs, up the protein, and work on cutting out processed food.

meshashesha2012

i know people say a calories is a calorie but i've found that for my body that isnt true. if most of my calories are from carbs then i tend to not lose because carbs (not from fruits and veggies) make me retain water. same thing is i go over on sodium.

i'd suggest playing with your macros and changing your goals to also track sodium and fiber as well as fats, protein and carbs. and don't forget to drink your water!


and losing 5.5 inches over the course of 3 weeks is pretty good. i wouldnt worry so much about the scale if your losing inches

MarlinWil

Hey!

So the theme is that we ALL have been/are there, and we ALL feel for you and want to help. I was reading through some posts today, and came across this one - couldn't add to it, because it's full up, but for sure I got heaps of ideas and inspiration. I've added the link here for you to go straight to it:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/668183-what-s-your-weight-loss-plan?page=2

There were a couple of posts that seemed a little bit sarcastic, but the rest of them are well worth the read. Also, a lot of what has been said in response to you will help. I feel discouraged, but that isn't because of putting the effort in and not getting results - it's because of being time-poor and struggling to find a balance that allows me to meet my need for activity and good health.

Personally, I think it's awesome that you are losing inches, because the weight loss won't be far behind. It just will take a while for your body to get into a new habit - it's taken a lot longer than three weeks to create it, so your body will probably want to take it's time to adjust to the change and make sure it's here to stay. Your job is to ride through that frustration and start to tell your body what it needs, rather than becoming a slave to old habits. I'm SO talking to myself here! But I think it fits for all of us who are on that journey from bad habits to healthy and energy-creating ones.

Good luck. I think you are going to achieve amazing things. Certainly reading through some of the stories on here has helped me to feel motivated and overcome those days where I just want to throw my hands up in despair. There were some great inspirational quotes I read this morning, too, and I'll have to post again to give you the link, but they made me smile and also made me sit up a little straighter when I read the ones that challenged and spoke to the part of me that feels overwhelmed.

mariarose88

I'm definitely not an expert, but based on my own experience losing about 50 lbs I can tell you what worked for me. If you want to lose faster, you're probably going to have to cut your cals down to 1500 or lower. I don't know how tall you are though. Honestly, at this point in your weight loss you should be seeing the biggest results that you'll see on your whole journey. I lost like crazy at the beginning and as I get closer to my goal weight it takes more and more time to see the pounds come off. When I was 180-150 I lost at the rate of about 2-5 pounds a week depending on what I did. I was eating 1200 cals (I'm 5'2'') and exercising 6 days a week. I did about an hour of cardio almost every day and no weight training. I actually started weight training pretty recently because I learned about how important it was in getting to a healthy weight for someone of my height.

I would really recommend that you focus mainly on cardio for the moment. Weight training is awesome, but cardio is what you really need to see the pounds come off as fast as you want. Focus on building endurance right now and it'll get easier and easier to do cardio for longer and longer. Some super athletic and fitness-oriented people are really against doing cardio for long period of time, but when you need to lose a lot of weight I really think it's the way to go.

Another thing to remember is that the major determinant of weight loss isn't exercise but nutrition. Exercise is super important to maintain a healthy body and it's incredible for your sense of well-being, but what you put in your body is so much more important. Just think that at most you can burn about 500 some cals an hour. It takes about 5 minutes to put the 500 cals back in your body. The most straightforward advice I can give you is to ensure that about 60% or more of your plate is fruits and veggies. Lean protein and whole grains should fill up that rest. It's definitely hard to transition into that kind of eating, but if you'd like websites/cookbooks with great, simple and cheap recipes for this kind of eating I can definitely recommend some!!

Finally, in order to build muscle you need to make sure you're giving your muscles adequate time to rest in between weight training sessions. The recommendation that I've found most often is to take a rest day from weight training (but not exercise!) every other day. However, the rule does not apply to cardio. As long as you're not pushing yourself to the point of injury, you can pretty much do cardio every day with no issues.

Sorry I wrote a book, but I hope this helps a little!!

MarlinWil

So here's that other link - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/666838-give-it-to-me-baby-uh-huh-uh-huh.

By the way, I think you have incredible eyes. Be gracious and receive the compliment. It's given by a happily married woman who believes we don't give enough compliments, and for sure we girls suck at receiving them.

shosh413

EAT BACK YOUR CALORIES AFTER YOU EXERCISE!!!!

sdavis448

It does seem kinda strange that this early your not losing more quickly... I lost 50 lbs in three months.. and now am hitting the point where it's slowing way, way down... if your goal is first to drop the pounds, I'd focus more on cardio then strength training.. if your putting on muscle, the scale isn't going to drop as much, even if the inches do.

ethansmug

I am sure others have said it, but stop looking at the scale. All it does is frustrate you and make you not want to do the things you know you should do.

Are you feeling better? Has you quality of life improved? Have you noticed your clothes getting bigger?

If the answer to any of those is yes, then *kitten* the numbers and just continue doing what you are doing =]

bsajbel

Hey, girlie! Couple quick thoughts- a lot of people don't realize that there's a difference between net calorie burn and gross calorie burn. When I go for a two mile run, the treadmill will say I burned 200 calories- most machines and programs tell you gross calorie burn. The problem is, that gross calorie burn actually represents what you burned from the exercise itself AND what you would have burned according to your BMR (basal metabolic rate), which is basically what you burn during that same time, anyway. Problem is, with MyFitnessPal, BMR has already been taken into account in calculating recommended daily calories. As such, my two miles actually burns closer to 175 or 180 net calories, which is really what should be factored into my daily diet. It doesn't seem like much in terms of one run, but if you're exercising every day like you say you do, that could really affect the rate of your weight loss.

Secondly, I'm guessing if you didn't work out before you began this plan, you're probably drinking a LOT more water than you used to when you began this journey. One gallon of water weighs 8.35 pounds, so if your initial weigh-in was on a normal, pre-workout day and now you're weighing in after having upped the amount of water constantly in your system, it's perfectly normal for it to be several pounds above the weight you've actually lost.

A final thing, you HAVE to include cheat days and foods into your diary or you will sink yourself incredibly quickly. Weight loss is almost exclusively a numbers game, especially in the beginning stages. You must have a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat. If you have a "cheat day," you can undermine an entire week's worth of calorie burn in one meal. (A fast food burger or half of most pizzas is over 1200 calories, a 16 ounce milkshake can add over 800 calories, and French fries can easily run 500) I had a cheat day once on my program and entered the foods after the meal- I had doubled my recommended calories for the day and I was disgusted, but seeing it visually made me realize I would never do it again. Make sure you're looking at the weekly averages in your MyFitnessPal program, especially the graphs. Seeing I ate X grams of fat in a numerical table means nothing to me until I see on a pie chart that X grams of fat is where 30% of my calories came from the week! The bar graph is really helpful because it puts a line across your chart so you can easily tell what days you were over or under and if you can afford a cheat. Honestly, every week I see that I stayed under most days, I'm so proud of myself that I don't want to cheat and blow all of that hard work.

Best of luck!

heybales

I know the inches i lost are a great accomplishment but right now i would take pounds lost than anything right now. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

As long as you are putting a harder load on your body, you are asking it to improve. Those improvements are usually NOT weight loss.

If you want weight loss - stop putting a load on your body.

Just walk daily. That should burn as many calories as the strength training was doing, without the load and asking the body to improve.

Just do a couple weeks to drop some weight, or alternate for that matter. Because the lifting is better at fat burning.

But if you just must see scale move, don't do it.

meshashesha2012

It does seem kinda strange that this early your not losing more quickly... I lost 50 lbs in three months.. and now am hitting the point where it's slowing way, way down... if your goal is first to drop the pounds, I'd focus more on cardio then strength training.. if your putting on muscle, the scale isn't going to drop as much, even if the inches do.

sorry but this isnt true.

start lifting as soon as possible because it will insure that you lose as little lean body mass as possible.

it really makes no sense to rush to lose scale weight, when 50% of it is muscle then turn around later and be unhappy with how your body looks and have to overeat in order to gain back muscle. then have to go on a cut cycle to get rid of the extra fat you gained while you replaced the muscle you lost while losing in the first place. just lift from the beginning to preserve muscle and make it so that your body i primarily burning glycogen and fat during your loss

muscle is incredibly hard to build, which is why people who do it for a living eat special diets, take special supplements and do special workouts, and even then those guys are only building like 6-10 pounds of muscle a year.

also newbie muscle gains are only like 1-3 pounds in total. that's pretty much nothing if you're overall trying to lose more than 50 pounds. nothing in terms of slowing you down on weight loss i mean

rozsbluejay

I suggest you don't look at the scale for a long time. Have someone else look at it for you and just give you motivation. Then when there is a significant change tell that person to allow you to look. That should help you. That's what I do. Also, try to measure your inches because they don't work at the same pace so you should try measuring inches and it should change your way of thinking. Because really you go get a dress in measurements not in weight. Just change your way of thinking for now.

jacrellin

First off, girl you are doing great, don't lose your motivation now. So I have looked over you diary and you are a lot like i was when i first started back in feb. I was eating within my calorie goal, but i was eating anything that i could fit in there, like MacDonalds breakfast, or pizza, you know the same kind of stuff i was eating before but now i was more conscious about what else i was going to eat throughout the day and i would skip meals because i had such a huge calorie intake at lunch. I lost about 5-7lbs in a month, which, is pretty good, but like you were saying for girl in our size it should be a lot higher. I gave up. Then, I decided to research more, what was i doing wrong, why was it so hard, i was eating my calorie goal usually a little bit under, i would never eat what i had earned from exercising, you know everything you stated. Then i realized i had to make a drastic change if i was going to lose weight. My mother in law has lost 60 lbs with this super expensive weightloss program. I am using the tools that she has learned and applying it to my diet. Ive been doing this for three weeks now, and have lost 15lbs. This is what i do, you can take it or leave it. I have stopped eating high sugar foods, including fruit. The body still process fruit sugar like regular sugar, it does not know the difference. So no fruit. No dairy, the body tends to also produce more fat from dairy products and is harder on the digestive system. That includes cheese. keep your diet super low carb. I see that you have popcorn everyday, a lot of days it is the really buttery kind. I myself love popcorn, but try to cut that down to once or twice a week. Or maybe have it on your cheat day. No soda of course. Eat at least two cups of veggies at lunch and 2 cups at dinner. But only green veggies. Cauliflower if ok as well, but carrots, red peppers that kind of veggies have sugar in them. Mushrooms are ok as well. Eat as much salad as your heart desires, it is a low calorie food so if your hungry make a nice salad. For the dressing there is a no carb, no sugar no calorie dressing made by Walden Farms that is actually really tasty. i love the balsamic one. Eat at least 8oz of protein. i split it up 4oz at lunch 4oz at dinner. I have a protein shake every morning for breakfast. And lastly drink more water. The fat needs to escape the body some how. Your body will be eating it up, but there is still more that needs to be flushed out. Also make sure you are taking supplements. Especially a multi- vitamin and get some omega 3 fish oil. This taken with a lot of water everyday will help you glands and lymph nodes flush themselves out. It is a hard diet to live buy, but the results come much faster and you stay more motivated. I weight myself every morning right after ive used the little girls room. I do it so i know how well i did the day before. The scale should change a little every day if you are following your plan. You can do this girl! It is so hard but so worth it! Oh also, i dont workout too much right now, im actually on a very low calorie diet, because i am so overweight i dont want to hurt myself. I want to loose some weight first and then begin to work out. Sorry this is so freakin long, i have just been in your shoes and totally know how hard and discouraging it is. Keep with it girl! You got this!

LaurenAOK

You say you do weight training? Well then it's no surprise the scale isn't going down. When you weight train you tend to not lose weight for a variety of reasons. If you read around the boards you'll see that it's a very common issue people have. But that doesn't mean weight training isn't awesome! I mean, you lost 5.5 inches in 3 weeks? That's amazing!! It really is. I know you said this isn't what you want to hear, but you've got to stop focusing so much on the number on the scale. Take before and after pictures and measurements, you'll see so much improvement there. My weight hasn't budged in 3 months, but I look and feel better every day. That's because I strength train and I continue to lean out even though the scale isn't necessarily showing it.

If you want to see a drop in the scale then you could always become one of those cardio queens... but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. I'd rather look amazing and have a higher number on the scale any day, rather than having a lower weight but being flabby and out of shape. That's my personal goal though. It's really your call.

heybales

It does seem kinda strange that this early your not losing more quickly... I lost 50 lbs in three months.. and now am hitting the point where it's slowing way, way down... if your goal is first to drop the pounds, I'd focus more on cardio then strength training.. if your putting on muscle, the scale isn't going to drop as much, even if the inches do.

This is a great prescription on how to lose muscle mass as part of your weight.

This is great example for all to see.

50 lbs in 3 months, or 12 weeks, or 84 days about.
50 lbs, if it was fat lost, would be 175,000 calories deficit during that whole time.

175000 / 84 days = 2083 deficit daily

Do you really think there is any way in the world you had a deficit of 2000 calories each and every day for those 3 months for that loss to have been just fat?

Let's even say 5 lbs the first week was water weight, as most seem to get when starting a diet.

That's still 1875 daily deficit.

Didn't happen - you burned off a bunch of muscle. Muscle used for energy only has 600 cal per lb, so much easier to lose a lb of muscle than fat - but so much worse for long-term ability to keep your metabolism up.

Hence the reason your loss has slowed down, and you should have a very interesting time getting to maintenance, or getting that muscle back too.

LaurenAOK

EAT BACK YOUR CALORIES AFTER YOU EXERCISE!!!!

Also, this Your body really needs it, promise.

http://www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

wolveslovemee

My approach is actually slightly different, and this is my personal preference, as my body seems to work best this way.

I actually do 4 days a week of about 20-30 minutes of weight lifting. I started at 2 lb cans (haha) and in less than 2 months Im about to buy 10 lb dumb bells.

Point being: when I have plateaued, I noticed when I upped my weights, I would get over the hump very quickly. I never exceed more than an hour of working out a day (maybe sometimes Im 55-65 minutes), and always slightly more cardio than strength training.

Another thing was when I had hit a wall, I noticed some of it was from not drinking enough water. You know why you need water, you dont need me to explain it hehe.

And one last tip I have is you may need to increase the INTENSITY of your workouts! You may be used it. A couple people and myself seem to acclimate VERY fast to workouts, and our body's stop progressing that way. Im honestly ready to move onto a new workout in less than 10 days, its ridiculous.

Hope you get over it! Just try and keep going!

bellabijou

You know that old saying " a watched pot never boils"? the same thing applies to the scale. Weighing yourself everyday wont do anything except make you anxious! You have lose 5.5 inches - that is GREAT!!
Also, like some have said, if you are just doing weight training, then it is no wonder - your body is building muscle! This is a GOOD thing. You need to mix some cardio in the mix now, that will help you lean down, and the weight training will strengthen your core and allow your body to work to its fullest.

Most important, track all your days - even cheat days. You need to hold yourself accountable for what you put into your body. If a cheat day is turning into an all out binge, then it is beyond a cheat day, it is something that could be destroying a whole weeks worth of work.

Remember, cheat days are needed sometimes to get the metabolism on its toes, but "cheat" really should be small indulgences - not making up for a weeks worth of treats in one day :-)

Keep your chin up - you are seeing numbers, they are in those 5.5 inches you have lost!

wolveslovemee

You know that old saying " a watched pot never boils"? the same thing applies to the scale. Weighing yourself everyday wont do anything except make you anxious! You have lose 5.5 inches - that is GREAT!!
Also, like some have said, if you are just doing weight training, then it is no wonder - your body is building muscle! This is a GOOD thing. You need to mix some cardio in the mix now, that will help you lean down, and the weight training will strengthen your core and allow your body to work to its fullest.

Most important, track all your days - even cheat days. You need to hold yourself accountable for what you put into your body. If a cheat day is turning into an all out binge, then it is beyond a cheat day, it is something that could be destroying a whole weeks worth of work.

Remember, cheat days are needed sometimes to get the metabolism on its toes, but "cheat" really should be small indulgences - not making up for a weeks worth of treats in one day :-)

Keep your chin up - you are seeing numbers, they are in those 5.5 inches you have lost!

^^ Totally agree. 5.5 inches is what Ive lost in like 2 months of working out like crazy. That is amazing progress.