How long do you have to plateau...

That is quite an accomplishment sweetheart. I think you have done a fantastic job thus far. Perhaps you should consider as Shia34 said a chat with a nutritionist and a fitness trainer. I've started recently and find that having both is actually helpful to understand where exactly you may plateau and why. Having this app on my phone has been a life saver in maintaining my calorie count not to mention that if I reach a 10% goal I reset my weight goal and I'm instructed to lower my calorie count as I loose the weight.

I find that this was effective when I was on Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig but since I relocated to Europe (Norway) neither one of these calorie counting programs exist so this App has helped incredibly. Just the same, keep up the good work and don't give up on yourself, it's the faith that you had in you that kept you going this long and wil most likely keep you going. Stay strong, positive and active.

Viv
:happy:

I feel your pain! I just started 2 weeks ago, I'm pretty fit, I am 5'4 and weighed in originally at 152.5 (my goal weight is 130). I have had 5 children, but the youngest is now 12, and I have been struggling with the belly fat since birth #4. I lost 4 pounds in the first 3 days (I think because I was consuming a lot of sugar and counting calories has cut back on that). However, I got on the scale this morning and weighed 150 again. I have been doing a TON of cardio this week to try to come down from the 148.5 I was at for more than a week. Now I'm pretty discouraged. I know that muscle weighs more than fat... all that, but I want the fat to go away!

How can I burn fat??? I am eating most of my calories even after my workout calories are added. I am thinking I just need to give it more time. But I want it to come off....

Firstly, I think your goal weight should be whatever YOU decide it to be!! The guildelines are for average people and I dont beleve any of us are 'average'!! Athletic, toned, bodybuilders, stocky, big boned, small boned, short, tall ............etc. We are all different and have differing ideal weights. I can't tell you how I shocked I was when my step aerobics instructore told me she weighed 150lbs! She was tiny, but sooooo toned and looked, what I would call 'skinny'!! So, my point is, when YOU are happy with your weight then that's the time to stay there. Perhaps gauge it on what size jeans you want to be??

Especially for somone relatively young like you that has probably spent most of your adult life overweight. You dont actually know YOUR true weight, so now its time to find out....woooohooooo!!

Secondly, I'm a true beleiver in doing something different if you reach a plateau. As Einstain once said: "Insanity is doing the same things but expecting different results"!!! If you are sure you are doing everything right, then, after 8 months hun, its not working!! So, why not come OFF the diet. Eat, drink and be merry for a week, and then cut back again. You might show a gain of a couple pounds (but please dont rely on those scales to be accurate, its just water!!) but you will shake/shock your body into moving again. You never know, as soon as you eat more, you also might show a loss!

You have come sooooooo far. I bow down to your patience and willpower. Congratulations hun. To me, you've won the battle of the fat. Now you just need to win the battle of being happy with yourself

Good luck

Does Muscle Weigh More Than Fat?
A pound of muscle, a pound of fat: What's the difference?
By Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & FitnessQ. Does muscle really weigh more than fat? I am a trainer and am frequently asked this question by members of my gym. I have heard conflicting reports and can’t seem to find the right answer.

A. No, muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle weighs exactly the same as a pound of fat—they both weigh one pound!

This commonly cited gym cliché is somewhat misunderstood and misused. The rationale that muscle weighs more than fat is often cited as an explanation for why a person might find that they aren’t losing weight, or are gaining weight, when they kick off an exercise regimen. The idea seems to be that if you are exercising—and theoretically losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time—the effects cancel each other out. So, in theory, you won’t see desired weight loss as measured by pounds on the scale, even though you may be improving how you look.

You certainly can improve your appearance with exercise without always seeing a change in your body weight—by becoming firmer, more sculpted and sometimes leaner. But that doesn’t mean that you are gaining massive amounts of muscle, or losing lots of fat.

Muscle Does Not Turn To Fat

Some people believe that if they start working out they turn their fat into muscle or that, if they stop working out, their muscle will turn into fat. Neither is true; each tissue is distinctly different. You can gain muscle or lose weight, and you can gain or lose more body fat, but they don’t convert into each other. Both gaining and losing muscle and/or fat can both affect your body weight on the scale, depending upon the magnitude of the body fat or body muscle increase or decrease.

To gain significant amounts of muscle, you not only have to do the type of exercise that stimulates muscle growth—progressive and intense resistance training—you also have to eat more calories than normal to fuel the process. Most people who exercise, especially women, do not perform resistance training at this level, nor do they eat more to try to build muscle. Even if they did, it could take many months to increase muscle mass by just a few pounds.

Body Fat Tests

Some people get their body fat tested at the gym, either by using skin calipers or a portable, step-on, body-fat scale. These measurements may show shifts in muscle-to-fat ratios, making it appear that a person has gained pounds of muscle and lost pounds worth of fat, whether or not the normal body-weight scale registers any big changes. Whether these potentially large changes in fat and muscle mass are accurate is up for debate.

On the body-fat scale, for example, you can get a dramatically different estimate of these figures from the same “weigh-in” based on whether you are input as a “normal” person or an “athlete.” So at the exact same moment a scale may show that you are at 18 percent body fat or at 27 percent body fat, for example. This large discrepancy is because the formulas used in these types of machines to calculate your measurements are based on estimates.

And there’s always a “standard deviation” in these estimated readings from calipers and body-fat scales. In other words, your result may not be as specific as you think it is, it falls within a range.

Why Doesn’t Exercise Always Affect Body Weight?

If someone is working out and not losing weight, or not losing as much as they want—or if they’re actually gaining weight—the first place to look is the type and amount of exercise.

Weight loss boils down to burning more calories than you normally use in a day. Cardio exercise burns more calories than muscle-toning or the average resistance-training workout. So dialing down the stretching and core work to just once or twice a week, and replacing it with more cardio should produce more weight loss. And the more minutes the better when it comes to weight loss: An hour to 90 minutes of aerobic activity per day on most days of the week will affect body weight.

Some people get overly obsessed about numbers on the scale. If you are happy with the way you look and feel, and you feel like you are improving your fitness and strength, then continue doing what you are doing. Exercise works, and every minute of movement helps your health in some way. Weight loss through working out may be slower than you want, but it’s likely to be longer term solution and a healthier way to trim down and shape up, or at the very least to stave off weight gain over the years.

More from Martica on MSN Health & Fitness.

Do you have a fitness or weight-loss question for Martica? Send e-mail to experts@microsoft.com. Please include Ask Martica in the subject line. Each of our experts responds to one question each week and the responses are posted on Mondays on MSN Health. We regret that we cannot provide a personalized response to every submission.


Martica Heaner, Ph.D., M.A., M.Ed., is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist, and an award-winning fitness instructor and health writer. She has a Ph.D. in behavioral nutrition and physical activity from Columbia University, and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. She has written hundreds of articles for publications such as Self , Health , Prevention , The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of eight books, including her latest, Cross-Training for Dummies. (Read her full bio.)