Frustrated - Nothing is changing

AimeeCu

I have been at MFP for a little over a month now and right off the bat I lost around 4 lbs but now I am exactly back to where I started. I think I eat fairly healthy, try to stay in my calorie goal and walk or cycle almost every day. I know you cant expect to see huge results in just a month but I thought something would happen.

Jxnsmma

hard to comment without seeing your diary

MyaPapaya75

hard to tell with diary private

drmerc

4 lbs per month is good

samlankford

4lbs a month is healthy..

jenniferrow

Try taking your workouts up a notch or two. Really give it all you've got.

lisa27midd

I am in the same boat as you. I've had a terrible time with my weight throughout my whole life. Finally decided to lose weight the healthy way and signed up on here. I have been eating a more healthy diet and *gasp* eating properly <---soemthing I've never done. I didn't expect to lose 15-20 lbs within a month, but I'd like to have lost at least 5. I lost 4, then check the other day and went up a pound. I've blown it this week entirely due to being overwhelmed at work, but managed to stay within my calories. I just didn't have a chance to do my 30DS workout or log my food diary.
I know that this is the healthy way, but damn if I don't get impatient sometimes!!!! lol. Good Luck! I vote to stick with it, and one day we will be so happy with our results : )

jnj1013

Without seeing your food diary or knowing your stats my generic advice to you would be to take your measurements, find out what your body fat percentage is once a month and take photos that day as well. I lost 14 pounds pretty easily to start with, then started boot camp & strength training and got really discouraged because the scale pretty much didn't budge for a long time. I knew my body was changing because my clothes started literally falling off of me (I actually did have to hold up my pants one day at work with a Magyver like paperclip scenario) but I didn't feel good about myself because the scale wasn't adjusting.

Once I realized that I actually had dropped 3 pants sizes I started to feel better, but when I saw the photos of myself from just 6 weeks apart it finally clicked. Your profile indicates that you are at a healthy weight for your height and age which probably means you aren't going to see a dramatic weight loss (unless you're at the top of the healthy range), you're going to have to look for different ways to gauge your process.

carlydevi

Same here.

10 lbs in the first two weeks (mainly water I guess) and since then 3 lbs plus and nothing is changing. So frustrating..

Courtney_7790

1lb a week isnt bad at all...Generally the fast weight loss comes from water weight and if you make huge changes, like when my mom started a diet she went from eating like 4000 calories a day and cut it down to 1600 and she lost alot fast...however my sister always ate somewhat healthy so she didnt even lose half as much, Your better off:)

rose313

Are you logging accurately? Are you measuring portions? Are you taking little bites of things during the day that add up?

Courtney_7790

Also i know some people that found themselves more successful without useing a the scale because it just depressed and dicouraged them. They lost the weight just the same.

Lys2

It's common to plateau in weightloss/fitness after a while when you stick to the same routine. Like jenniferrow said, increase the intensity of your workouts. Do you do any strength training/weight lifting? Your metabolism gets an extra boost from that & it lasts longer than the boost from cardio.

You said you "think" you eat fairly healthy and "try" to stay within your calorie goals. Maybe take a week to watch those two things more closely. MFP tracks more nutrients than what you see when you enter meals in your food diary; dig a little deeper into what's actually going into your body. Are you low on vitamin C or D, etc?

Also, even if your scale's not showing a change, your fitness and shape can be changing depending on your workouts. What other measurements are you using to track your progess?

justlistening

I had something similar happen. I am just trying to lose 15 lbs and lost 2-3 within the first month. Nothing is happening now so I was really bummed. Now I have decided to track by body fat % instead. I want to look leaner/tighter so I think this is a better measure for me and I am too lazy to do waist/hip/arm measurements. So I stepped on my new fancy scale (the one that said I weighed 2 lbs more than my old one) and amazingly my body fat did go down this week compared to last week by about 1%. I am happy.

AimeeCu

I just unlocked my diary. With regards to some of the other comments:

The 4 lbs was right off the bat put I have put them back on
I do log everything I eat
Unfortunately the intensity level of exercise I do right now is what I am restricted to per doctors orders

AimeeCu

It's common to plateau in weightloss/fitness after a while when you stick to the same routine. Like jenniferrow said, increase the intensity of your workouts. Do you do any strength training/weight lifting? Your metabolism gets an extra boost from that & it lasts longer than the boost from cardio.

You said you "think" you eat fairly healthy and "try" to stay within your calorie goals. Maybe take a week to watch those two things more closely. MFP tracks more nutrients than what you see when you enter meals in your food diary; dig a little deeper into what's actually going into your body. Are you low on vitamin C or D, etc?

Also, even if your scale's not showing a change, your fitness and shape can be changing depending on your workouts. What other measurements are you using to track your progess?

I have measured once since the beginning and have lost about 1/2" in my waist. How often should one measure?

Jxnsmma

If I were you... I'd try
Not eating back my exercise calories, eating smaller meals of high quality food throughout the day, increasing your protein and decreasing your carbs, eating less processed, packaged foods and ditching the pop.

Of course there will be 15 vultures here in about 30 seconds saying Im wrong and I suck, because everyone has their own opinions, but these are changes that IVE made that worked for ME...

Good luck!

asaffell

This. Definitely play around with the calories too. Bump them up by 100 for a few days, see if anything changes.

If I were you... I'd try
Not eating back my exercise calories, eating smaller meals of high quality food throughout the day, increasing your protein and decreasing your carbs, eating less processed, packaged foods and ditching the pop.

Of course there will be 15 vultures here in about 30 seconds saying Im wrong and I suck, because everyone has their own opinions, but these are changes that IVE made that worked for ME...

Good luck!

espree70

I understand your frustration...just take your time and follow your plan, make good choices as often as possible. A pound a week dosen't seem like it's fast and it's not but so worth it in the long run in retrainining yourself to make good choices. None of us became overweight by eating well, I don't know know anyone who gained weight eating salad's, fresh fruit, and vege's...I too struggle wanting my outsides to match the way I feel inside , I just know this .. this program works and the support of other people here has helped me...keep on keeping on...success is measured in our determination to succeed and not give up.