Need help and tips to lose 20 pounds :(

work out longer

It is down to calories in versus calories out. Are you weighing your food to be accurate, or just eyeballing it in "portions"?

Weighing it all, and keeping a log on MFP will keep you on track

Avoid supplements and fads, you are looking for a long term healthy food choices

don't be hard on yourself, just keep up the exercise, i still have a long way to go, but i know that getting there at a steady pace is better for your body

I'm 60 and just realized I've lost 20 lbs since Feb 20 2013. My husband has too. We just did it together slow and steady. We used the5:2 method but I think what every one says is true. We've had to watch carefully for 2 days a week everything we ate. We had each other but found our MFP friends a great encouragement too. It didn't happen overnight but if I can do it at 60 you can too.
I haven't finished yet.

Apart from the usual advice you will get and some very good points made above, remember the following: The one thing I would say is to watch out the amount of weight training (circuit training) you do. You will burn fat calories but also build muscle. So your weight might not reflect actual good work done. Also, make sure your water and fibre intake is on the high side (it has helped me immensely).

Eat more if you're exercising and don't juice.

Hi, are you taking measurements? With the 30 day shred some people don't loss a lot of weight but lose a lot of inches - which is great, because you are building muscle which in turn, burns more calories than fat. I think 1200-1500 is a perfectly reasonable amount to eat, really. Just make sure what you're eating is good for you! (With some treats from time to time, of course)

Where to start?

Okay, first off how tall are you? 1200-1500 calories really doesn't sound like much. Gives us some figures and can give you some figures for resting energy expenditure. What sort of timescale do you want to achieve it in?

20lb in 6-10 weeks is 100% achievable with little rebound at the end (the rebound is typically body storing sugars + water in muscles that are depleted from too low calorie intake, for someone my size that can easily be 2+kg)

If you are exercising a lot, it sounds you're doing a reasonable amount, then the points about muscle gain are valid (and muscle is denser than fat) rather than relying on the scales get a tape measure and measure your wait about 1" under your belly button and track it (I like figures so daily suits me) try to measure same time each day i.e. first think in morning after rising (same with weighing yourself) Don't freak out about things moving in the wrong direction! use an app like "libra" or something else that records your values with a moving average, that way you can see the trend rather than worry about the absolute numbers. As long as the trend is moving the right way everything else is just noise! It also helps you correct as you go along.

Consider doing a 5:2 or 4:3 type diet (severe calorie restriction for 2 or 3 days a week, for you 500 calories on fast days) the feast days will boost your metabolism which could easily be on a go slow after juice diet and a long time with low calories. On your feast days shoot for plenty of protein (will boost metabolism). Try to stick to whole foods. Try to avoid highly processed foods.

As for supplements, I've literally spent £1000's over the years on them and apart from a few that are now banned most did nothing. Even when they did work the breakdown worked out something like this, 70% diet 29% exercise and 1% supplements. What you put in your mouth is really the number one thing. If your goals move on from weight loss to adding muscle the story is a little different but not much.

As I said earlier let us know how tall you are and then we can run some figures and see where you are at. The basics aren't hard in principle, they just take a while to "see" the results and if you aren't looking in the right place you can miss them

I've been messing around with my weight and strength training now for almost 26 years and some of these "truths" have only become apparent to me this year! Probably because I spent so long looking for a short cut that didn't exist!

Cheers,

Mike