Is it possible I'm putting on muscle?

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Ask there. Super-helpful and a great group to be a part of!

I apologize if someone mentioned this already, but just pointing out that if you set your activity level for "active" because you workout a lot, and ADDITIONALLY you log your workouts, you're counting your exercise TWICE which means MPF would be giving you significantly more calories than you should actually eat to lose weight and you might actually be eating above maintenance and on a gain cycle even with the amount you workout.

^^This too, after looking at your diary.

Sometimes women have additional problems with weight loss - we don't all convert calories to energy by the same formula, and particularly not when compared to men.

If you keep eating healthy, low and working out, and nothing happens, you should go see a doctor. Your lack of sucess may be due to intolerance or illness, or an hormonal imbalance, for instance caused by PCOS.

Get your doctor to help you put together a healthy diet, and advice you on exercize. Even if it turns out you are prefectly OK, you just need to be even healthier and stricter about your life-style, you will have learned something valuable. It can also take away some of the stress and frustration, as a doctor will be able to give you good, qualified and educated advice about how your body functions.

Good luck!

Regarding my training I was doing Jillian Michaels Body Revolution for 7 weeks and that consisted of 6 workouts with 4 of them containing weights and body weight exercises and the other 2 were pure cardio. In addition I was adding in 2-3 days of additional cardio on the running machine, elliptical etc.

I stopped BR last week as I wasn't happy with the speed of my results so I'm now doing Insanity plus I've added weight training for 45 minutes 2 x a week when I do Insanity also on that day. My new weights routine includes all the things you've said ie. legs, biceps/triceps, chest, back, abs etc. and I have a fully equipped home gym so I can lift heavy. I have started doing this twice a week for 45 mins to 1 hour per workout.

Isn't it really common to gain a lot of water weight the first week of Insanity? It's probably masking any fat loss right now. Give the poor program a chance to work before you change things again!

Hey, here is my quick story so maybe there will be something of interest for you!

I have been close to my goal weight always - only wanted to lose about 10 pounds (i.e. belly fat!). I have found only now, after about 6 weeks of really trying, that I am noticing a difference. I eat approx 1200 a day (sometimes a little more) and always eat most of y exercise calories back. You need to make sure you are logging absolutely everything, including sauces and cooking oils etc etc because it's easy to miss stuff and to also be incorrect with your portion sizes.

One thing I noticed made a HUGE change with my bloating with cutting out gluten. Now when I have it, I get horrible stomach cramps and really bloated and feel like crap, so I think this was hurting my system to some extent and now my body is mostly clear of it (still give in once a week to a little bit of something bread-based) I am feeling much better. On a side note, doing this has helped a skin condition I have had for about 8 years, which wasn't cured even by the strongest medications - there is definitely a connection here. I have also been much better taking my vitamins as I have a couple of deficiencies, most notably vitamin D but also calcium, magnesium, fish oil and a general multi.

To add on to this, I am currently on a snowboarding trip, working 1000+ cals a day on the slopes. I have also before this trip started to do lots of core workouts and a bit of work on my legs. After a week here eating very good food - rice and egg for breakfast, some veggies + meat + rice for lunch and then meat/fish for dinner, I have really been able to notice a difference. Note that before this is was much MUCH more sedentary as I was in my dorm room studying/on the laptop a lot.

One thing I have changed also is how much water I am drinking. I am just drinking and drinking and DRINKING I can't believe it. I have upped my protein intake a little, having 2 shakes instead of 1, which means I really do need that water.

I haven't weighed myself yet as the scales here are the ones I am used to using, but I have noticed just from looking at myself when I sit down etc that my stomach fat has really reduced a lot. (I go to the hot springs every day and am in my birthday suit rolling around in the water, so I see my body at every angle whether I like it or not). I don't remember ever having a stomach as small as this!

I have been working HARD. My legs, especially calves, upper body shoulders/arms, core and even bum are sore. For me it was that extra exercise that I really needed to kick my metabolism I think (I never got official measurements). I have another 7 days here so fingers crossed I can keep this up and wow my boyfriend when I'm back in his arms

Good luck

tl;dr increase exercise (overall strength training + cardio), drink more water, cut out gluten, be sure to take appropriate vitamins (vitamin D, calcium, multi, magnesium, fish oil in my case).

If you keep eating healthy, low and working out, and nothing happens, you should go see a doctor. Your lack of sucess may be due to intolerance or illness, or an hormonal imbalance, for instance caused by PCOS.

this! I have a hypothyroid which makes weight loss just that much harder for me get your bloodwork done

Can I ask how you calculated your maintenance calories? I think you might be kind of way off and you're basing everything off that. Let me show you where I'm coming from, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't claim to be a professional - I only know what works for me:

I have MFP set to 'sedentary" and log my exercise/anything I do that I wouldn't NORMALLY do during the day if I weren't trying to get fit. (i.e. I don't log housecleaning or anything like that, but if I walk a couple of blocks to get my lunch, I might log that). You have yours set to active, log everything, but don't eat any of it back - so far it sounds like it would even out, but please keep reading
I currently weigh almost 50 lbs MORE than you do.
My maintenance calories would be about 1900 and you've got yours set to 2300-ish you said? Subtract 500, and you're eating at MY maintenance almost. Maybe "active" is just too "active" for your actual expenditure?
I workout HARD 6 days/week (I'm doing Body Revolution, I run two extra flights of stairs every time I have to leave my office for something just to get more activity in, and I have an exercise App on my phone that gives me a mini-workout that I can do in my cubical once an hour like 30 pushups or 100 knee highs or whatever). I burn a total of around 600 extra calories a day. I am in fairly good shape even though I'm still overweight.
I eat between 1200-1600 calories a day and consistently lose 1.5 lbs a week on average. I've lost 60 lbs since June 2012. You eat significantly more than me a day and aren't losing

Everyone's different, but I think you're making this more complicated than it needs to be. A nutritionist calculated my maintenance calories at around 2300 when I weighted 230lbs using a device that measures metabolism and extrapolates that kind of information from there. You weigh almost 90 lbs less than I did at that point and I was working out six days/week then, too and had been doing so for 4 months.

Take from that what you will, but my advice is to put your actual stats into MFP (if you have a sedentary job, tell it so). Log your exercise. Put in your weight-loss goal. Eat how much it says you should eat. Let it do the work for you. If you don't listen to MFP then you can't really be surprised when the system doesn't work how it's supposed to. Please also be aware, like others have said, that you aren't overweight enough for super fast/significant results if your ticker is correct. It's going to take you longer to lose than someone in the obese range because you're closer to goal.

I would see a nutritionist with the proper equipment/credentials to give you your stats or your doctor if they provide those kinds of services and find out what your ACTUAL maintenance calories are and go from there if you'd like to go with the 500 cal deficit method.

Again, take with a grain of salt. I'm not a professional, just trying to help.

Expert here. How much rest and sleep are you getting?

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I'm in the same boat as you....

Here is my 2cents....

Keep doing what you're doing, exercise, eat clean, drink water, sleep!

Stop stressing about the number! I've really had to let that go.

If you're gaining I'm more for eating low and eating back my exercise calories which I calculate with a HRM....this week I lost 1.7 doing this! I gave up on IPOTRM as it just didn't work for me.... We are all different after all:)

Keep up the the good work.....

Just a forewarning...I have been doing Insanity for almost 4 weeks and I have only dropped 1 lb. I hear that this is pretty typical. But I will say that I can see a change in my body composition.