Reached plateau already

It varies.

Practice excruciating patience, the plateaus pass, although sometimes slowly.

You should realize that anything worth having is worth working hard for.....alllllllll the way until you get there. And then you start working toward the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

I'm not sure what your goals are, whether it is to improve your body, improve your health, take on an event or just weigh less... but....

You can't start working toward something and a month into it say, 'well this is harder than I thought, so I'm probably going to give up.'

You can't aim for a goal haphazardly without a plan and without knowledge and comprehension of what it will take and expect yourself to make consistent progress, much less reach where you are aiming.

You could save yourself some pain, agony and frustration and learn the best way to go about reaching your goals - THEN settle in with the idea that it is going to take a year. Yes a YEAR - if it takes less- awesome! If it takes more - well, you're YOU - you can totally handle it.

If you are doing the correct workouts to reach your goal, and eating within the proper nutrition and calorie window to be able to handle those workouts and your everyday life, and you still see no changes in measurements, body fat or weight after 3-5 months - THEN you have a real plateau and then you can worry about increasing your intensity or shifting some things around to blow past it.

But this is not a plateau - it is a failure to launch correctly, - which is the easiest thing to fix of all the problems you could have stumbled upon.

Learn.
Work hard.
Be patient.
Keep going....
Don't stop unless it is for your victory dance.

No one likes to hear that there is no way to guarantee consistent weight loss, but it is not an exact science.

This is the part where you have to start having faith that you are doing all the right things.

right things =

consistently raising the bar for yourself

consistently raising the level of difficulty in your workouts, responsibly

consistently visiting your NUTRITIONAL INTAKE (not necessarily calories - but what nutrients you are giving your body to fuel those steadily harder workouts instead of just picking a calorie goal and staying with that forever)

consistently taking the time to teach yourself and raise your comprehension level for what you are doing to your body

sticking with your plan to prove your self-discipline and mental strength. (to prove it to yourself)

fully understanding that the number on the scale is the worst sign of progress and the fastest way to derail your motivation.* see footnote

believing in the power of your own hard work.

be actively patient.

*footnote: embrace the other ways of proving that you are changing and making a difference. make a monthly ritual you look forward to, if necessary. take a whole day for yourself, take all of your measurements regularly, take progress pictures (even if they never see the light of day), scan events for walks and 5Ks for charity, track your time for a route - even walking - and try to get a little faster each time. write down all the weights you start with and see what you are able to lift by the end of the month. Can you stay on the elliptical for 30 minutes? try upping the intensity and staying on for the same 30 - or REALLY upping it and going for 20. These are the things that will change your body. And when people say that they want to get down to a certain weight - they also hope to look better and see what they will look like at that weight. Aiming for a lower number on the scale will not change your body into that body. Balancing your workouts equally between cardio, flexibility and weight training (meaning stuff that weighs more than your purse - not something you can easily do 20 reps of) WILL.

I wish you all the very best of luck.

(You can do it)
(but only if you noticed that the magic word here is consistency)

Decide today that it is going to take a hell of a lot to stop you. You're no weak pushover and today is the day you're going to start proving it to the world.

You're eating well under your calories each day, not eating back exercise calories, and have your goal weight loss per week set too high. It's not surprising you've stalled so early. Set your goal to half a pound a week, eat all of your calories, and eat back your exercise calories.

What does it mean eat back your calories?

You're eating well under your calories each day, not eating back exercise calories, and have your goal weight loss per week set too high. It's not surprising you've stalled so early. Set your goal to half a pound a week, eat all of your calories, and eat back your exercise calories.

What does it mean eat back your calories?

When you do exercise, if you look at your daily goal for the day, it increases the number of calories you are supposed to eat. MFP sets you up with a calorie deficit so that you lose weight at a reasonable rate. If you exercise, you need to fuel your workouts and preserve the moderate deficit, so you eat those calories in addition to your base calories (eat the exercise calories back). There's a much better explanation here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

Just so you know, this is going to take you at LEAST a year, so you might want to get cozy with the idea of not skipping around and shortcutting your way through all this. Unless that is exactly the kind of results you want. The shallow superficial ones.

Good luck and all that.