Why haven't I lost?

I understand your pain. I wish I knew the answer. I'm going through the same thing myself and ended up gaining 3 pounds. I wonder if it might have to do with "that" time of the month? Maybe it's only water retention.

I didn't see much change my first few weeks of working out...I didn't watch what I ate then though. Could be your body is gaining muscle right now, hence causing you to gain some. Are you eating your exercise calories? If you are, that's great. If you aren't, maybe try to since anything under 1200 isn't really enoug to sustain you, especially since you're working out so much.
I also started with 30 lbs to lose...and I'm realizing its going to take longer than a few months to get rid of it. So don't give up and stick w/it!

Looks like you might be high in sodium that could make you retain water. Drinking plenty of water will help.

I would start by decreasing the sodium and sugar in your diet. Both tend to retain fluids, that means cutting down on pizza and soda. I know i love them too. but now only have pizza 1-2 times a month and rarely have a 'real' soda. I drink mostly water and have a diet soda 2-3 times a week. I have also tried to not have too heavy of a meal in the evening. Try having a larger lunch and a smaller supper, that way your body can use the energy you give it, and it doesnt just sit there all evening. Good luck.

I have a couple of suggestions.
1. Drink water until your urine is clear, a sure sign you are getting enough!
2. Take your measurements at least once every two weeks. The scale may not budge, but you are losing.
3. Try to eat at least half of your exercise calories back. It gives your body the fuel to burn!

I lost 5-7lbs quickly, then had a two week period with nothing...I ended up adding, (yes, adding) 200 more calories a day, and am back to losing about 1lb a week, and so many inches!!!

Stick with it, and you can do this!!

A couple of things.

The most problematic is your net calories was just over 400 yesterday (total calories eaten minus exercise calories) ... is this typical? If it is, you're looking at a depressed metabolism. That number shouldn't be less than 1200.

Also, most of your calories are in the evening. Spread your calorie allowance more or less evenly throughout the day. Try not to eat more than 550 calories in one sitting.

You need to try to drink more water if you are sore - I believe that helps keep the muscles hydrated and reduces inflammation and you are dizzy because you are not taking in enough calories to sustain your work outs. You can have tea, but I think I read somewhere that you shouldn't count caffinated drinks as water - have your tea when you need a caffeine boost, but drink some more h20! Try propel packs or crystal light packs to add to water if you absolutely can't handle plain water. I get bored with it on some days so I need to add a little flavor!

If you have questions be sure to ask - everyone on here is pretty helpful and knowledgable about the whole weight loss issue. I'm really glad I found this site and I know others are too! :flowerforyou:

Make yourself a tall glass of chocolate milk after your workout. That will help with the soreness (and help you boost up your overall calories). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/152240.php

When you start working out, you retain water. If you still haven't lost anything after the first two weeks, then I'd revisit your numbers and make sure you aren't eating more than you think or that MFP hasn't set your goal too high.

were are your snacks? you really need to eat something before you workout. I think your in the starving mode. try eating your exercise calories and see if that helps. 3 meals and 3 to 4 snacks a day (snacks 100 to 200 calories) And drink alot of water 8 to 12 glasses a day.

I also agree you need to snack more. Your breakfasts look healthy and filling- eggs and oatmeal are great. Eat more at lunch if u can or have a healthy snack around 2pm. I love the 100cal almond packs. Then at 4pm, have another 100-150 cal snack. This will prevent you from feeling famished at dinner time. I try to keep dinner around 400 cals. Some healthy snacks are yogurt, whole wheat toast w/1tbsp of pb, almonds (no salted nuts), banana, apple, baby carrots, cheese stick, even some crackers are ok.
Try to switch to diet soda. Or zero calorie vitamin water or sobe. They taste awesome!
Also eat the extra calories u gain from working out- u need most of them or else you'll be dizzy and weak.
1200 should be your minimum.

Hello,

There are several things that come into play. I'll share my thoughts with you. The first thing is that when people engage in physical activity and if it is strenuous enough, then they may gain weight instead of lose or they may stay the same. Why? Well, if your muscles get shocked by this new activity, to protect themselves they may retain water. This causes a temporary weight gain or a plateau. This gets a lot of people that try to lose weight discouraged and they tend to give up at this point. I just want to let you know to keep with it and trust me, give it another 3-4 weeks and the weight should start coming off.

The second thought is that your weight can vary from hour to hour or day to day based on what goes into it and what comes out. There is a free book online called the Hackers Diet and I encourage you to read it, if you want the link, let me know...otherwise you can google it. In any event, it also has online tools that take your daily weight fluctuations into consideration and use trend analysis to find your true weight and you can graphically see if you are losing weight or not despite the fluctuations on the scale. Very helpful.

Another thing is, are you eating enough. You shared info about your physical activity but did not tell us how many calories you burn at rest and how much you are burning during your exercise. This will help determine how much you should eat. If you are not eating enough, your body will go into starvation mode and hold on to all of the calories that you put into it...so I might go as far as to encourage you to eat a little more for a week or so and see what happens. I've had to bump my calories up several times to get over plateaus.

You may also be gaining muscle while losing fat....which is a good thing because muscle burns fat but muscle weighs more than fat. So try not to be so fixated on the scale and go more on how your clothes fit and how you feel, or better yet take your measurements on a regular basis (like monthly). If people can notice changes, chances are you are losing fat but gaining muscle which means you are losing inches and that's good.

Lastly, you could invest in a calorie counter (kind of like a bodybugg or fitbit) and then you can get a real idea of the calories you are burning daily and change your food habits based upon that. I hope this was helpful. Good luck to you. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

What has help me too is to have a "not to hard" work out, for example, if I am in a stationary machine for an hour, after the 4th day I will walk around the neighborhod for a hour.
I hope it helps