Discouraged!

Are you feeling better? Focus on that. The scale doesn't show ALL of the positive signs of weight loss, only the numbers. Keep going and next week will be better.

Don't worry - I did not lose for the first two weeks then lost 4.5 the third week. I think our bodies are not use to exerecise and water - and hold water and gain in muscle (losing fat but muscle weighs more). Keep on it and you will lose!

You can do it! Don't give up.
I didn't lose anything in the first two months of working out. The scale is the devil! LOL. I did lose inches in the first two months though. I highly suggest measuring yourself. I did thighs, arms, neck, wrists, tummy, and chest. The inches were my motivation. Also, I just feel better. I look forward to a workout and am thankful that I can fit it in and that I am healthy enough to even do cardio. This process is miserably slow but it always pays off in the future. Money can't buy your health only hard work can.

Good luck to you.

One reminder, you will be doing this for a while so pace yourself and dont get frustrated AT ALL. I have been at it for six months, and have had good days, bad days, very bad days, and super good days. When you get frustrated, eat an apple.

Sometimes our bodies take awhile to realize that we've made changes & that we're eating right. I stayed the same weight for 2 weeks (my first 2 weeks) and was SOO discouraged. I kept at it and 3 days later my body finally caught up & i dropped 6lbs. Give your body a little bit of time to recognize that things are changing & adapt to the changes. You'll see results. Do NOT get discouraged & do NOT give up!!! keep going, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I am also a week in and, despite daily exercise (a completely new concept for me) and a drastic change in my calories consumed, showed a gain of two pounds when I stepped on the scale this morning.

However, despite that, I feel really good! I feel healthier and more energetic, and I'm not about to give up! I'm hoping to see an improvement when I weigh in next week. So stick with it, you can do it too!

Um ... I would buy a food scale to make sure that you're only eating one serving of meat for a meal. I weigh my meats to ensure that I only eat 3ozs of meat per serving. In addition, I had a friend that ate a big bag of potato chips, and put in her food diary 150 calories when she ate something like 2,000 calories. She went out to eat almost every day during lunch, and couldn't understand her two double meat cheeseburgers with fries were over a thousand calories, and pretty much zapped all of her calories for the day. After I watched her eat a plus sized potato with a half a bucket of butter on it, I simply asked her, "Are you serious about losing weight?" She would lie to her journal, and then complain that she wasn't losing any weight.

Anyway, I am sure you're not skipping diet entries or just quit entering your foods when the number is about to turn red. Until you have a complete understanding of what a portion size looks like, I would enter every calorie, and read every label to see the portion size. You have to retrain your thinking about food to make this work. So, if you're reading labels and eating the right portion sizes and doing all the right things, but not losing anything, I would take a visit to my doctor. Something else could be happening with your body.

I get being discouraged. I think that the advice to just keep at it is a good advice...its a marathon, not a sprint. It has, after all, only been a week. So yes, keep at it. But, I think the advice isn't complete.

If you don't see results in a couple of weeks, you might also want to assess what you're doing. Not in an "oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong!!!" way, but in a reasonable, self-reflective way. Keep a diary of what you're doing, what kind of diet you're trying (diet as in way of eating, not as in fad diet). And if you are really only eating as much as you say think you're eating. When I first started loosing weight, I went on a low fat vegetarian diet (vegetarian, minus the cheese and fatty carbohydrates) and started doing moderate amounts of cardio. Well, after 2.5 months, after 5 days a week in the gym and very clean eating, i had lost a whopping 2 pounds, and although I felt better overall, I did not feel terribly energetic when I exercised. So yes, it was important that I stayed motivated and stick to my goals, but I also needed to evaluate whether this way of eating was working for me. Yes, it works for other people, but did it work for me? My answer was no. Yes my body is unique, but it isn't THAT different. I'm not an alien...I'm still human! And as I was starting out being very obese and out of shape, it was far too early for a plateau! So I experimented. I added more fat and animal protein...still watching calories, mind you...calories ALWAYS count. And I started seeing results. Not magic results, but reasonable ones.

So, I'm not saying to do what I did in terms of what I ate. There are thin vegetarians, rice eaters, and hunters all over the world. But rather what I'm saying is that although you should stick to your motivations, you should also be reflective and learn from your experience. No sense in sticking to what *isn't* working. Use this as a time to learn about your body. What does it like? What does it respond to? What makes it tired? What gives it energy? As this is a marathon and not a sprint, experiment a little, but always with a healthy dose of good sense.

i totally feel you. i just restarted on here cuz i gained 4 pounds in 2 weeks. soooo frusrating but we can do it. just up the exercise. i know easier said then done. you can do it though.

It takes a while for you body's metabolism to get back I'm gear