Scale Just Not Going Down

dawn33

So I have been busting my butt for 41 days now eating my calories and exercising. I stepped on the scale last weekend and no change...I stepped on the scale today...no change. It's really upsetting and is getting me down that I am not losing. I have lost 8 pounds to date and I don't know what I am doing wrong and I don't know what changes to make.

I know lots of people giive up when they have had a couple bad weigh ins and I don't want that to happen to me but for the last two weekends I have felt depressed and sad because I feel like I am doing some much and getting nothing back from the scale.

If anyone has an advice or tips that would be awesome. Even just words of encouragement!!!!

shellybressler

Well if it means anything I was in the same predicament as you up through last week (I was happy if the scale went down at all) and when I got on the scale this morning and I lost an additional 4 pounds. However over the past week I increased my caloric intake from 1200 calories to 1500 calories. My friends husband who is a personal trainer had told me that my body was not getting enough calories because of all the exercising we were doing so I tried it ( I thought what do I have to loose ) and it worked. So you might want to try that.

dawn33

Ya my dad thought that maybe I wasn't eating enough calories. With logging it do you just got over your calorie intake then?

Thanks for your reply. It's really hard when you are battling the scale!

smwert

Perhaps you are losing inches - as you know muscle weighs more than fat - if you are exercising hard - that may be it.

lreed

I feel you. I am going thru the same thing right now missed 1 day of exercise in two months and have kept pretty good on the calorie track. I keep hearing that our bodies get used to what we Are doing might need to change it up. More cardio more calories different foods have a couple hundred ex:flowerforyou: tra calories every so often drink more water. I will be interested to hear what others say! Don't give up!

hateras

I am right there with ya...My biggest weight loss came one week when I was off my thyroid meds because of delays in getting them filled. Since taking them again I have gained back what I had lost in that week. Now I have taken myself off of them again based on some research that indicates they are a generic synthetic brand and may result in weight gain vs loss. If I start to lose weight again - I am calling my doctor to ask him to put me on something else.

I am hoping that is the problem because I have also done well with the exercise and calorie counting and just not seeing much progress.

If that isn't then problem then I will need to try adding more calories...

shellybressler

I cheat a little I just put that I exercised an additional 300 calories... And then I log my regular exercise as well but I only eat the additional 300 calories not all the exercise calories (I hope that makes sense)

dawn33

I am going to start logging my inches and I think I am going to lay off on the scale for a little bit. I am going to change what I am eating and I think that I might try eating 1500 calories rather then what fitnesspal is telling me. I am glad that I am on here though because my day was starting off really bad and now that I have blogged this and see that there is support out there and awesome advice it makes me feel alot better.

Thank you everyone for replying and giving me tips and new ideas! :flowerforyou:

ZacharysMom

I actually had the same problem I was doing really good and then nothing even though I was watching what I ate and exercised. I even gained some weight Yesterday I was having a bad day and I just ate anything i wanted. I went 500 + calories over and I lost a pound this morning ?? Hang in there and try to eat some more calories. Good luck!

Plantpot

I totally understand how you feel, and did a similar post last week. Since November I have lost 6lbs, however, since January I have seen very little chang!! Dont think I have ever been so good at sticking to a diet and exercise plan, so its massively disheartening when you are not getting results.

I wasnt eating my cals, going by the rule, exercise more.... eat less, however was kindly told by peeps on here to eat the extra exercise cals as aleady have a deficit on here, for example I am on 1200 cals, so if I earn say 500 cals exercising and dont eat them, then I am only really getting 700 cals, which isnt enough!!

So I am going to give it a couple more weeks eating exercise cals, and see how I get on. It is defo worth doing your inches if you are exercising. I know its nice to see the scales moving, but inches will spur you on.

I am really worried as I get married in 6 months, cant believe I have done so well for 2 months and feel no better for it!! I ordered my wedding dress today, and last tried it on about 4 weeks ago, would have been nice to have tried it on again weighing a bit less!!! But never mind!! I was worrying last night thinking what if I carry on like this.... trying really hard, but getting no-where.... its sooooooooo frustrating!!! Was even considereing going back to weight watchers, which I have done in the past and know it works, but then I dont tend to eat as healthy when on it!!!

Fingers crossed you start seeing results....and that I do too!!

lilchino4af

It could also be that if you're doing the same workouts all the time your body is getting used to it and reached a plateau. If this is the case, then you should change up your workouts and shock your body; it'll start losing weight again in no time! Also agree w/eating a few more calories to jump start your metabolism or provide more fuel for your body to burn when you work out.

stormieweather

Ok wait a minute. 41 days is 6 weeks. And you've lost 8 pounds. That is a little over a pound a week. How is that not losing weight?

abuselma

When there is a deficit in your calorie intake, which happens when you are losing weight, your body loses weight rapidly and then it realizes it wont be getting more calories soon, so as a survival instinct your metabolism slows down, to save what calories you do take in so you slow down on weight loss, upping your calorie intake as otehrs have mentioned should actually help you continue losing weight.

dawn33

Thank you everyone for the awesome adviced and I am going to take it all in. Hopefully by eating more calories my body will allow me to shed some pounds.

I hope that all of you stay movitivated and keep on the awesome track you are on.

We can all do this and it's nice to have a great support system.

Thank you again

lotusfromthemud

Ok wait a minute. 41 days is 6 weeks. And you've lost 8 pounds. That is a little over a pound a week. How is that not losing weight?

That was my first thought. Your body is going to go through little re-adjustment phases along the way. Concentrate on your achievements! 8 pounds in 41 days is awesome!

:drinker:

And, start doing your measurements every two weeks to a month as well. Nowadays (I'm in my last little bit of body fat loss) the scale is very unkind to me, but my little yellow friend never lets me down!

savvystephy

I have been stuck around the same area too for the last few weeks - I go up, go down, but overall it is a slow decline. I have upped my calories from 1320 to 1400 to see if that helps (maybe even try 1500 if this doesn't work). Then of course eating my exercise calories.

If you want to change your calories you can go to goals and select "custom" instead of "guided" to manually change the amount of calories you consume. So you don't have to add an extra random exercise.

lchisum

Sometimes when you plateu you have to increase your time spent in cardio exercise. Like anything else, our bodies can become accustomed to a certain routine and after a while, it only maintains us instead of causing weight loss.

patchthezebra

My scale is still going down but only went down 500g this week. I exercised my butt off and did not eat anything naughty. I am disappointed as my husband (yes I know the male metabolism is better) lost 900g and only did little exercise.

Having now read all the posts in this topic it is making me realise that perhaps I am eating too few calories as I was always making sure that I was eating alot less than my 1200 calories thinking this will lose weight quicker.

This week I will try two things, 1. eat my allocated calories ensuring that I always have 1200 in the bank at the end of the day. 2. I now have a heart rate monitor and will exercise within my target heart rate.

I am already varying my exercise each day between walking, running, cycling and skipping.

Good luck everyone and I will give an update next week.

Patch

bethany_85

I have been at the same weight since Jan 20th. Up two pounds, down two pounds, up and down. It was very frustrating. So yesterday was my weigh in day and I had lost .8lbs. Not really all that exciting since I figured I would be back up those .8lbs today (since it was in the range of my +/- 2lbs that I have been struggling with). Anyway, yesterday I went to a party and went crazy. I ate and ate. I estimated that I ate about 1500 calories in chips and dip-- and boy was it wonderful!! Anyway, I had a regular breakfast and dinner and when I got up this morning I was down another 2.5 lbs. My point is, maybe you need a few extra calories. I'm obviously not going to make a habit of it but I've decided that once a month I'm just going to eat whatever the heck I want.

FireMonkey

Maybe there's something you're eating that's holding you back. I was stuck at the same weight for over a month. I had got into the habit of having a glass of red wine in the evening. Hardly a skid row alcoholic, and I always logged it and was still under calories, but I was concerned about getting used to it so I decided to quit. The scale started moving downwards again a few days later. :drinker:

smwert

My scale had stopped going down So I took Friday and Saturday off from exercising - walked a lot though and it finally went down this morning 1.4 pounds. I still have 2.2 of my cruise weight to lose but at least it finally moved in the right direction

michilynn

I'm there with you! I'm getting married May 8th and would love to be at least another 15 pounds lighter by then. I have been workign out regularly and watching what I eat for almost 10 months, with a total weight loss of about 18 pounds.

My problem is when I hit 197-198, my body just stops losing weight. I stay there for a couple weeks and then start to gain weight, with no change in my diet or exercise routine. I'm trying to prevent that from happening this time....

countingdown

I have been experiencing the exact same thing as most of you. After starting and stopping over and over again, I have been consistent for the past three weeks in excercising and maintaing my calories. The results, Nada. The scale hasn't moved. It can be quite frustrating and discouraging. However, I know the damage I have done to my metabolism needs some serious repair so I'm gonna stick with it for another three weeks and see what happens. I did find this article that made me feel a little (not much) less disheartened it's kind of long but I think well worth reading. Hope someone finds it useful.


http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TSInsideOut.html

ZacharysMom

I have been at the same weight since Jan 20th. Up two pounds, down two pounds, up and down. It was very frustrating. So yesterday was my weigh in day and I had lost .8lbs. Not really all that exciting since I figured I would be back up those .8lbs today (since it was in the range of my +/- 2lbs that I have been struggling with). Anyway, yesterday I went to a party and went crazy. I ate and ate. I estimated that I ate about 1500 calories in chips and dip-- and boy was it wonderful!! Anyway, I had a regular breakfast and dinner and when I got up this morning I was down another 2.5 lbs. My point is, maybe you need a few extra calories. I'm obviously not going to make a habit of it but I've decided that once a month I'm just going to eat whatever the heck I want.

that happened to me too. I ate and ate and ate one day and they next day I was down 1 pound when some days I eat good and workout and nothing! It's funny how losing weight can be so confusing. Now I know if I go out to dinner or do something fun I don't have to worry about always watching what I eat :bigsmile:

AnahitaCanDoIt

You can manually change your calorie intake in the Goals Tabe. Go to manually change and you can change it yourself so you don't have to rejig the numbers of exercise.

I am in the same boat but I've been measuring (Jan 23, Feb 10, March 1) and I've lost 18.54inches so I'm pretty happy with that. Even with a +/- 10% error margin, I'm still doing okay. Like you, though, the scale is not moving and I've been on 1222cals and not eating my exercise cals. I put up (manually) my cals to 1400 and as I've been sick in bed and not exercised yesterday and can't today, I'm not sure how this increase in cals will work.

In the past, I could restrict food intake to the same cals I'm on now, no exercise and was consistently losing 4/5lbs per week at the weight I am now. I sorta feel like I'm being punished for exercising! Gah!

I know I didn't look good when I lost the weight by diet only, but it sure felt nice to see a small number on the scale (I was at my goal weight 6 times in my adult life and always put the weight back on within 12-18mos---yes, all of the weight back on, all 60-70lbs!!!)....

Anyway, let's all hope this eating your exercise cals and upping the cals level works. Good luck to us all!

♥seoid♥

same here, i'm so mad and unhappy. :sad:

patchthezebra

Ok, I did what I said last week, ate my 1200 calories and exercised within my target heart range for most of the time. I also did 2 big bike rides (15k & 20k). I lost 1.3kg. It worked! Hope this helps someone else.