What am I doing wrong?

I checked your diary - what are you doing for exercise? I mean I see it logged as Circuit Training, but wondered about specifics. Also wonder how accurate the recorded burn is because MFP is notorious for overestimating.

That being said, on many days, even if you cut the burn in half, it would appear you're not eating back exercise cals, or not enough anyway. Example - last Friday your intake was 1399 cals, your burn listed at 796 = 603 net cals, pretty low. Even if the burn estimate is high - if we cut it half, and say you burned 398 cals that day, it still leaves you with a net of less than 1200 cals, and that's not good. Another day you have intake of 1218, burn of 802 = 416 cals, which leaves you pretty much out of gas for the day.

Food is fuel, goal means GOAL, not several hundred cals under, especially when you're set at the bare minimum goal for women. If you can get yourself a HRM to track calorie burn a bit more accurately, that helps, but you need to either eat those burned cals back and get your daily net up to goal, or cut back on the workouts so you don't have such a huge deficit every day.

Eat too little for too long and you're giving your body a reason to store fat rather than burn it.

This. If you actually are burning that many calories in a work out you really do need to eat them back. MFP already has your deficit figured in.

I checked your diary - what are you doing for exercise? I mean I see it logged as Circuit Training, but wondered about specifics. Also wonder how accurate the recorded burn is because MFP is notorious for overestimating.

That being said, on many days, even if you cut the burn in half, it would appear you're not eating back exercise cals, or not enough anyway. Example - last Friday your intake was 1399 cals, your burn listed at 796 = 603 net cals, pretty low. Even if the burn estimate is high - if we cut it half, and say you burned 398 cals that day, it still leaves you with a net of less than 1200 cals, and that's not good. Another day you have intake of 1218, burn of 802 = 416 cals, which leaves you pretty much out of gas for the day.

Food is fuel, goal means GOAL, not several hundred cals under, especially when you're set at the bare minimum goal for women. If you can get yourself a HRM to track calorie burn a bit more accurately, that helps, but you need to either eat those burned cals back and get your daily net up to goal, or cut back on the workouts so you don't have such a huge deficit every day.

Eat too little for too long and you're giving your body a reason to store fat rather than burn it.

This. If you actually are burning that many calories in a work out you really do need to eat them back. MFP already has your deficit figured in.

This.

Are you having dressing on those salads? Pickled(high salt) stuff. Are you measuring everything? I noticed your sodium was high quite a bit-may be retaining some water. Also, I noticed that you eat out pretty often, and when you do that it's never totally accurate with regard to calories, etc.
You might try eating at home more where you can be absolutely sure, at least until you're at goal. Those last few pounds can be SO hard!!! Hope this helps!

Hi,

I think they mean in order to have proper nutrients for your body, you need to refuel after your workouts. That is the one thing I have learned. I eat 6 small meals a day.. 200 calories each meal. I try to balance it with a veggie or fruit, protein, and a complex carb. On days I weight train, I eat more because I've burned more. And on weight days, I drink a protein shake afterwards.

I haven't peeked at your diary, but as long as your meals are balanced then you should start losing weight. If your eating the wrong foods/high calorie and still exercising then you are just maintaining your weight... Does this make sense?

It look me forever to figure how my body worked with food. Good luck on your journey (:

Today I did level 1 of she'd and shred, a mile of intervals on the treadmill, biked for 20 minutes and walked for 2 hours. I thought I wasn't doing enough exercise. ....

That's TONS of exercise for one day.

You might want to track your water consumption. If you eat quite a bit of sodium, you might want to up water intake. Good luck.

Go do a search on cardio and cortisol. Too much cardio freaks your body out -- its really stressful, because its really unnatural, hormonally speaking.

And cortisol makes it hard to lose weight, makes it easy to gain weight, and puts that weight right around your middle in the most unhealthy place.

I checked your diary - what are you doing for exercise? I mean I see it logged as Circuit Training, but wondered about specifics. Also wonder how accurate the recorded burn is because MFP is notorious for overestimating.

That being said, on many days, even if you cut the burn in half, it would appear you're not eating back exercise cals, or not enough anyway. Example - last Friday your intake was 1399 cals, your burn listed at 796 = 603 net cals, pretty low. Even if the burn estimate is high - if we cut it half, and say you burned 398 cals that day, it still leaves you with a net of less than 1200 cals, and that's not good. Another day you have intake of 1218, burn of 802 = 416 cals, which leaves you pretty much out of gas for the day.

Food is fuel, goal means GOAL, not several hundred cals under, especially when you're set at the bare minimum goal for women. If you can get yourself a HRM to track calorie burn a bit more accurately, that helps, but you need to either eat those burned cals back and get your daily net up to goal, or cut back on the workouts so you don't have such a huge deficit every day.

Eat too little for too long and you're giving your body a reason to store fat rather than burn it.

this

You aren't eating enough for that type of workout.

I have looked over a few days of your food diary and I notice a couple of things that could be holding you back.

First is measurements. Do you measure your food? When eating out particularly guestimates can kill you. I note refence ot 1.5 ounces of barbecue ribs - that is VERY little. Also, you need to apply some thought to calorie counts on the database as some of them are so far off as to be worse than useless (you have a good example: .a quarter of a typical Chinese restaurant plate of chow mein is a heck of a lot more than 22 calories. ) Try checking a few similar items on the database to make sure your selection is in the ballpark. For example, a typical half cup serving of most starchy foods (noodles, pasta, rice, potatoes) is going to run 100 calories or more. So if you ate only enough chow mein noodles to fit neatly in the cupped palm of your hand, it would be at least 100 calories - and that is before you factor in things like the generous amount of oil they cook it in (100 + calories per tablespoon and most Chinese resturants start off a dish for 4 people with 4 tablespoons of oil - then there's meat, sauce, etc.)

I do not see any references to butter, margarine, oil etc - like in your omelette - Are you leaving them out? Little things like thais can add up enormously. As do sauces and condiments like ketchup, mayo, relishes etc.

I do not see much that looks like vegetables. Your body needs the nutrients in these, they help fill you up and they help keep the output part of your digestive tract working properly. (If your body is not getting rid of excess water and waste the scale can show 3-5 pounds that is not your body, if you know what I mean.)

May I suggest that you see a dietitian? They can be a real help when you are a bit over your head on your own

Good luck and good health.

Have you tried weight training? You will build more lean muscle therefore burn more fat. However, you may not see much change in weight loss if you gained muscle mass. I would also eat more protein from lean meats, eggs, seeds and nuts: and less grains and dairy. For carbs, focus on veggies and moderate on fruit. Weight training also has other benefits such as better bone mass which we need as women. Btw, check to see how your clothes fit and have someone measure your fat loss. For the cardio workout, try shorter highly intense interval training.

PS- when you focus on just weight loss, you lose both fat and lean muscle...lessen the cardio and add weights to your workout routine. Eat more protein and healthy fats such as avocados, flax seed oil, virgin coconut oils. This way your insulin levels don't sky rocket causing more stores of fat. Eat your veggies and stop eating processed foods all together. Try to go more paleo or a modified one.

Hope this helps.