Doing everything "right" so why no results?

So basically you're only netting 1000 calories a day?

Edit: That's the way you made it sound but I looked over your diary and you seem to be netting more than that. You've got 14 pounds to lose, it's going to come off slowly. I don't think 1 pound in 11 days is that poor given the amount of weight you have to lose.

11 days is not very long, though I know it seems an eternity when starting out. It takes time for our bodies to adjust and show losses. You are still 1 pound lighter than you were before and you will soon be another pound lighter. And then another. And so on and so forth. Patience and endurance.

I have logged my food for 11 straight days, not missing one thing, measuring everything and drinking my water. I am a lifetime Weight watchers member but WW stopped working for me a while back, so I am actually tracking on their site AND this one. I eat fruit with every meal and get all my servings of vegetables and am always in the black with my numbers on this site. Only once have I gone over the 1200 calories allotted and that was not by much and I'm usually wit in 200 calories of the goal number. I walk for an hour 3 days a week and do aerobic classes (Zumba) for an hour 2 days a week. I eat some extra calories on the days I exercise but not all of them. I have lost only 1 lb. I am extremely frustrated. Any suggestions?

With 14lbs to lose, 1lb loss in 11 days isn't too far off.

I wouldn't call that "no results". I would adjust your expectations.

I have logged my food for 11 straight days, not missing one thing, measuring everything and drinking my water. I am a lifetime Weight watchers member but WW stopped working for me a while back, so I am actually tracking on their site AND this one. I eat fruit with every meal and get all my servings of vegetables and am always in the black with my numbers on this site. Only once have I gone over the 1200 calories allotted and that was not by much and I'm usually wit in 200 calories of the goal number. I walk for an hour 3 days a week and do aerobic classes (Zumba) for an hour 2 days a week. I eat some extra calories on the days I exercise but not all of them. I have lost only 1 lb. I am extremely frustrated. Any suggestions?

I'm looking at your totals for the day...

1,608 kcals, 211 grams of carbohydrate, 61 grams of fat, 59 grams of protein. You're also not weight training. Imo, your results are fairly typical with this sort of approach, which is relatively high carb, relatively low fat, and relatively low protein. I.e. you will be able to maintain a reasonably healthy weight, but may not be able to get quite as lean as you want.

My personal opinion on something that would almost certainly create a pretty strong effect would be to keep the calories about the same, but to restructure your diet so you get similar levels of protein and carbohydrate. This, of course, is not the only plausible approach that would work, but it is a good one. They don't have to be exact, of course, but a split that's something like 40/40/20 carbs/protein/fat or even 40/30/30 carbs/protein/fat would probably work pretty well. Note that you can set up these ratios in mfp pretty easily under custom settings.

Since both carbs and protein are ~4kcals per gram, using your totals above, this would mean ~135 grams of carbs, ~135 grams of protein, and ~60 grams of fat per day (just an example, these numbers don't need to be exact). The downside to this suggestion is that it might require fundamentally changing the pattern for how you're eating. I.e. you're going to have to eat significantly more protein per meal, and a bit less in carbs. The practical way to do this will probably require changing your food sources, i.e. you will be eating a lot more lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and non-sugary/refined things.

In addition to the above, I'd have you lift weights ~2-3 times weekly, focusing on progressive, compound type movements (squats variations, bench variations, pullup/pulldown variations, overhead press variations, row variations, deadlift variations). This would mean increases in working weights over time in the context of good form.

This combination, a relatively even split of protein/carbs and adding in a bit of resistance training, would almost certainly have a pretty strong impact on your body composition, in my humble opinion. I will reiterate this is not the only way to accomplish this, but it is, in both my experience and opinion, a good one.

I ate way more than my allotted calories today; will go back to being more on track tomorrow. I am in this for the long haul and know results don't happen in a day or a week. I will try eating all my calories and all my exercise calories this week and see if that give me any progress. Thanks.

Go back over your own diary and count portions and look at your macro splits, sorry but you are fooling yourself that you are doing everything right. I don't see all this fruit and veg, you should be having seven to nine full servings a day in the full rainbow of colours skewed towards veggies, I don't think you are even making five. There is an absolute ton of processed/ refined/ sugary/ junk food, that should be maximum 10% of daily calories.You are also missing out on dairy products, oily fish, protein, healthy fats, mineral and fibre rich foods.

For example on Wednesday you had less than a fifth of the recommended fat and about half the recommended protein, yet you hit your carbs and every meal or snack was laced with sugar. FIVE different chocolate flavoured things in a single day plus fruit, sweetened yoghurt, sweetened cereal. Not sure if you normally have a massive sugar habit or that is because you are undereating and need the energy, but try to make your meals real wholefoods that look exactly like they come off the animal or plant and savoury only.

I ate way more than my allotted calories today; will go back to being more on track tomorrow. I am in this for the long haul and know results don't happen in a day or a week. I will try eating all my calories and all my exercise calories this week and see if that give me any progress. Thanks.

Go back over your own diary and count portions and look at your macro splits, sorry but you are fooling yourself that you are doing everything right. I don't see all this fruit and veg, you should be having seven to nine full servings a day in the full rainbow of colours skewed towards veggies, I don't think you are even making five. There is an absolute ton of processed/ refined/ sugary/ junk food, that should be maximum 10% of daily calories.You are also missing out on dairy products, oily fish, protein, healthy fats, mineral and fibre rich foods.

For example on Wednesday you had less than a fifth of the recommended fat and about half the recommended protein, yet you hit your carbs and every meal or snack was laced with sugar. FIVE different chocolate flavoured things in a single day plus fruit, sweetened yoghurt, sweetened cereal. Not sure if you normally have a massive sugar habit or that is because you are undereating and need the energy, but try to make your meals real wholefoods that look exactly like they come off the animal or plant and savoury only.

I looked at your diary and would say this ^^^^^^^ also. And be patient with yourself as you find your way.

My suggestion would be to add different/more cardio activities, more frequently, and some weight lifting 3 times a week.

In addition to the advice of "eat more" calories, I'd also "eat less" bad carbohydrates such as breads, pastas, grains, etc. Eat more whole foods such as proteins, good fats, fruits and vegetables. Try to get your daily carbohydrate total down under 100, and make those carbs come from fruits and veggies.

Also, I am now looking just at today and yesterday.
Chocolate cereal, potato chips, reduced calorie bread (aka stripped of a lot of good things) reduced fat peanut butter (all the good fat taken out and replaced with sugar and bad things for taste), ice cream, chocolate, hot cocoa
more chocolate cereal, fat free cheese and fat free dressing (again stripped of GOOD fats too), proccessed soup with TONS od sodium, more chocolate, pretzels, and only eating a tiny bit above your BMR.
So basically you eat a lot of crap, just because you're under calorie (which in your case is bad, because you aren't giving your body enough calories) the calories you are eating aren't giving you proper nutrition, Diet foods are not good. fat free, reduced fat, that takes out the good fats of things and makes it more processed, just because something is low calorie (like the progresso soup) doesn't mean it's good for you, that has tons of sodium and will make you bloat a lot.
Also you're not logging water, you should drink a lot of water especially if you are going to eat all that salt. And I'm like you, I have my sweets every day, but you're having almost 500 calories of sweets and snacks (more than that including your chocolate breakfast cereal), which is like 1/2 of your overall calories. You gotta put good fuel into yourself to get results. You lost weight before because the calorie deficit at the beginning is most important, but now that you're only 10 lbs away from your weight you want to be it's all about what you're eating not as much how many calories. You should eat way more protein too, MFP sets protein levels low already so you should be going over that macro probably if you want to maintain muscle.

I would say pick and choose, you want your chocolate? have it for breakfast or dessert, and maybe 200 calories of it (ideally no more than 10% of your calories) and have the rest of your food be whole healthy foods. Full fat doesn't mean unhealthy, especially with things like peanut butter. You need more calories, and you need better calories.

Also, the closer to a healthy weight you get the harder it is to lose weight because your body doesn't really need to lose it any more, it will resist it. So you won't be losing a lb a week or a lb every 2 weeks maybe even if that's what your goals are set to. However, because you really have a terrible diet right now (sorry) just by changing it to be healthier and actually eating MORE you will probably shock your body into losing that weight much faster.

I know that you don't want to hear this: However your problem is that you're not eating enough Calories. As you begin to get lean it takes more fuel to fuel those strong muscles. As an example: most athletes consume 2 to 3 times the calories the average person does in a day. Slowly increase and you will begin to see some results. We all know the last 10 to 15 pounds are the hardest to loose.



CoachDuhamNC

I ate way more than my allotted calories today; will go back to being more on track tomorrow. I am in this for the long haul and know results don't happen in a day or a week. I will try eating all my calories and all my exercise calories this week and see if that give me any progress. Thanks.

Go back over your own diary and count portions and look at your macro splits, sorry but you are fooling yourself that you are doing everything right. I don't see all this fruit and veg, you should be having seven to nine full servings a day in the full rainbow of colours skewed towards veggies, I don't think you are even making five. There is an absolute ton of processed/ refined/ sugary/ junk food, that should be maximum 10% of daily calories.You are also missing out on dairy products, oily fish, protein, healthy fats, mineral and fibre rich foods.

For example on Wednesday you had less than a fifth of the recommended fat and about half the recommended protein, yet you hit your carbs and every meal or snack was laced with sugar. FIVE different chocolate flavoured things in a single day plus fruit, sweetened yoghurt, sweetened cereal. Not sure if you normally have a massive sugar habit or that is because you are undereating and need the energy, but try to make your meals real wholefoods that look exactly like they come off the animal or plant and savoury only.

^^^This. I love chocolate too, but you might be overdoing it if you want to continue to lose weight. I would definitely start tracking sugar and sodium as well. I wholeheartedly believe in the saying "everything in moderation" but chocolate for breakfast and chocolate snacks throughout the day isn't moderate. You're also eating a lot of processed foods. Chips, crackers, cereal, canned soup - these should be occasional things, IMO. Find some recipes and make your own soup. Portion it out and freeze it if that helps as far as convenience. Good luck!