Help...Look at my diary.

like everyone else, I am no expert...my advice for you (after skimming through your diary) is to incorporate more fresh, unprocessed food (ie. fruits, vegetables, whole grains). Like quantity, QUALITY of your calories is also important, you will find that you'll be much more satisfied and full throughout the day. I also suggest evening out your caloric intake throughout the day...instead of eating a 200 cal breakfast and 1000 cal lunch, aim for bigger breakfasts that way by lunchtime, you won't feel the need to go grab some fatty, high calorie fast food. I wish you luck, and hopefully you can come off of this plateau!

I agree, cut back on the processed foods. Protien with every meal and snack. Eat 250 to 300 caloires every 3 hours to maintain your metabolism. Focus on fruits, vegetables, whole grain and protein...If cutting back on fast foods and processed foods is a challenge maybe start with lunch and make it the night before to take to work: salad with lite vinergerette dressing, protein such as chicken or tuna, fruit... whole wheat roll or bread if making a sandwich, or toss the chicken or tuna with brown rice or wheat pasta, all sorts of "light recipes" out there to be creative with and fit with your liking. The amount of sodium you are getting from the processed foods is way out there. Good luck.

drink more water and same as above not so much fast food, try protein bars,drinks etc...good luck

Well, really, if your concern is losing weight - portion control is the way to go.
Eating out isn't the problem, actually, personally, it helped me.
I mean, I didn't go out and get bic macs, but I did eat out ever so often and eat frozen entrees - and with that, I got my appetite under control. So... it's whatever helps.

Same as above, eating too much fast food. I would limit it to maybe once a week, and when you do go, make the healthiest choice you can at which ever place you go. Taco Bell has a Fresca menu that is much lower in calories than the rest of their menu. At burger joints, I would stick to salads & ask for lemon wedges instead of dressing and squirt on top of salad or opt for a viniagarette dressing.

I would also suggest no carbs after lunch. For dinner have your protein with some greens or steamed vegies- no butter. And stop eating at least 2 1/2 -3 hours before bed time. Make extra protein for dinner, it goes great cut up on a salad for lunch the next day thats what i do!

Hope these are helpful..... but i believe cutting out the fast food & pre packaged foods (boxed rice, chips etc.) will really help you out.

Good luck girl

I also agree that your breakfast should be your biggest meal. Dinner should be the smaller of the three

Based on what you posted at the start of this thread, it looks to me like your baseline calorie intake is set too low & that you are consuming in excess of the calories burned during exercise. When I run the calculations for an aggressive rate of weight loss (2 lbs/week), your intake seems like it should be ~1465/day (this is assuming a sedentary job, which is reasonble for anyone with a desk job...if you have a very physically active job, like a postal mail carrier, your intake may need to be adjusted upwards a bit to something around 1700/day). By doing exercise & then treating the calories burned as "extra" allowed intake calories, it negates the value of doing the exercise to some extent....I think I understand why myfitnesspal has things setup this way (to prevent people from running HUGE calorie deficits on a day to day basis), but it may be counter-productive to your goals for you to log your exercise on myfitnesspal, if doing so is causing you to increase your calories by the amount you burn in exercise.

As others on this thread have already posted, the quality of the calories consumed is very important. Home-prepared foods will be much lower in sodium and generally lower in fat than take-out selections (plus, portion control is easier with home-prepared foods). Consider modifying your food "goals" setting manually, adjusting the daily intake value to 1465 or 1500/day and then adjusting the carbs/protein/fats percentages to something like 40/40/20 or 40/30/30. Protein will help control hunger. For good carb choices, rely on unrefined grains (vs things made with white flour/white rice, etc.) and try to limit sugar from sources other than whole foods like fresh fruit, skim milk, etc.

Good luck and best wishes! If it were easy, it wouldn't be a challenge! Keep working at it! You can do it!

I only scrolled through a weeks worth, but here is my opinion. Keep in mind I am not an expert. First I think that you need to start tracking your sodium. Based on some of your choices you are probably higher than the recommended intake. Try drinking your 8 glasses of water everyday so that you aren't retaining. That should make a difference within a week or two. Also you need to add some more fruits and veggies to your diet (high fibre) and try to eat less processed.

The thing I noticed first of all was all the sodium you were eating, then I looked at the numbers for your past week and sure enough, you were almost constantly going over. I have the same issue. I try to make sure I'm drinking 6-8 glasses of water to help flush out the sodium. I do eat out, but I try to rarely eat out, because I can't control the sodium intake when I eat out. Just my opinion.

My advice would be to start tracking your sodium. That helped me a ton. I had no idea how much I was consuming.

^^^this and maybe you need to up your calories and change your routine...you could have hit a plateau....I am constantly changing my workouts each month!

Well I don't know what to say because I'm eating alot less calories than you. If I ate over 2000 calories a day I'm afraid I would gain all 100 pounds back and very quickly. I would first of all stop eating out, eating so much starch and fried food and eat some veggies. But it's just an idea. I ate out, ate alot and ate more meat and starch for three weeks this summer when I was traveling and gained 10 pounds back but now it's coming back off. Good luck and I hope I've helped.