Minimal weight loss. Am I doing something wrong?

I think I am in the same boat. I keep hearing to not be discouraged! I lost right off the bat when I shocked my system and started mfp but now I am stuck and even gained a pinch. I can easlily see where I make mistakes and am trying to correct them. I am weak but trying! Slow and steady is the healthy way and I just need to resolve myself to not expecting instant results... slow and steady and it will happen! Chin up, right?!

You're averaging a pound a week. That's what you're supposed to be doing.

It is slow. But it really does add up.

It's tought to say if you're doing something wrong, because you didn't say what you're doing to lose weight.
Sorry if I'm just not using the site correctly & missing obvious info about your diet and exercise somewhere.
Good luck.

You are going over your daily allowed goals on some things.. You CAN adjust these manually to your liking and it usually is recommended as MFP usually estimates your proteins lower than should.

I agree that you're on track. I've lost my 40lbs 1 pound at a time. It takes hard work and time to acheive a fit body. there are no shortcuts or magic pills that will get you healthy.

Don't get discouraged and keep plugging away at it.

Do what you do for three weeks and THEN determine if you are making progress or not. If not, readjust and go for your next three weeks. Eventually, you will get to where you want to be. Just don't ever give up. Like anything else, it gets easier as you go along. Just stay on here on a daily basis and pay close attention to how your successful friends on here are doing it. It will happen. Just stay in it.

As PP said, it may help to adjust your carb/protein ratio. I have a really hard time with that. I started just trying to reduce my sugar intake and then lowering carbs in general is the next step.

I also notice on most days you have most of your foods grouped into two meals (lunch and dinner). I'm not sure if that is just the way you are logging or if it is actually the way you are eating. It might help to eat 5-6 small meals instead of two large meals.

Building on that, most days your breakfasts are the smallest and your dinners are the largest. It has helped me to try to flip that. Breakfast is the biggest (and highest carb) and then the meals get smaller from there. I'm not perfect at it (because it takes a lot more willpower to eat less at night!) but it does help with my weightloss.

Rome was not built in a day. It took you years to gain weight.

Expect it to take a little time to lose the weight.

All those shows on TV (i.e. Extreme Makeover, Biggest Loser) are not focused on the average person in their average environment ( I mean really... who has three months and several hours a day to work out with a personal trainer? )

Seriously. If you lose weight too quickly it isn't helpful as a portion of that weight loss will include muscle. Lose too much muscle and you lose the engine that burns fat (which in turn makes it harder to lose weight) This is part of reason behind the ideal of one pound of loss per week.

Ideally the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn.

You are on the right track. Just remember its a marathon not a sprint.

Believe I started MFP in late April 2012, and am down 8 lbs. That is slow but that is the way I want it. If I lose fast, I have backlash hunger and gain it all back right away. That has not happened since I started MFP and I keep slowly going in the right direction.

I started mfp 2 weeks ago. I lost 2 pounds the first week but only half a pound the second week. Just last night I changed my settings to 0 workouts a week. This changed my caloric need from 1350 to 1330. I use the sedentary setting because my job is at night in a hospital. Some nights I have nothing to do and it turns into a desk job. I do workout and enter this in to adjust my net calories. What am I doing wrong? Why would I only lose half a pound the second week? Can I plateau this soon? Also, I'm not sure if this may effect any advice you can give me but I have been fighting a cold this past week. I was hoping that may be what is effecting my progress.

The cold actually could be hindering the process as well. If you're not feeling well, you're not going to put all the effort into exercise that you should.

Edit:

Also, I'm looking at your food diary. I noticed there are several days in there where the majority of your calories are eaten at dinner. What you could try is eating more calories at breakfast, and less at night- that way your body can burn them off through daily activity throughout the day.

And just a thought, you could also edit your food diary to track sodium and sugar intake as well. A lot of sodium can cause you to retain water, which is what you lose primarily at first.

Hi! First of all, if you're doing MFP right, the weight should come off slowly - but since you're changing eating habits, it should also stay off. I find once I lose a couple pounds, my weight will fluctuate back up or stay the same for a week or more before I lose again. My clothes have gotten looser - in fact I'm down two pant sizes, so even if the scale doesn't always show the effects, I know I'm losing. Secondly, I looked at the past few days of your food diary. You eat a lot of cheese! That may be something you need to cut back on. I'm sure you love it, and you can certainly keep eating cheese, but maybe make an effort to cut that intake by half. I also see wine quite often. For me, I really limit the alcohol - a lot of calories for almost no nutritional value. Once you start exercizing regularly, which I recommend, you can add some of those things back in - in moderation. But if you want to lose without a lot of exercise, you really need to cut back calories, and I would start with those high in sugars, fat, and things that are processed (ready-made foods.) Good luck!

Track your sodium. It has a bigger impact than you might expect. Also, if (and only if) it won't make you crazy, weigh yourself once a day but only log your weight once a week - that way you'll know if you just happen to be bloated. I've had days where I'm 2lbs heavier on my weigh-in day than I've been the rest of the week just because I overate/had too much sodium/didn't hydrate enough the day before.

Most importantly, it's a slow process. You won't lose 2lbs every week, you might not lose 1lb every week - but it's not a plateau unless you don't see anything moving at all for a month or two. Be patient and keep eating right.

Great tips! I'm glad I looked at this post. Now I can incorporate this into my game plan! Thanks!