Not losing

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The answer is very simple to all the "I am not losing weight" threads:

You're not consuming less calories than you're burning. We're not plants, autotrophic metabolism is impossible. That's the easy part. It's also the scientifically undeniable, hard truth.

The hard part is determining why. The usual suspects are discipline and accuracy while logging.

If you get frustrated enough, like I was, you start ratcheting up the diligence in logging by:

a) Weighing all foods you consume. A "spoon" is not a measuring spoon unless it is truly sized. A bowl, a cup? Unlikely to be a true 254 ml. measure.
b) Using reasonable, conservative calorie databases - lots of entries in MFP are wishful thinking.
c) tracking exercise diligently.
d) using non-inflated, conservative calorie expenditures for exercises
e) Using more detailed estimators for your non-exercise metabolism. TDEE not working? You find out what is your actual lean body mass and estimate your basal metabolic rate using that. Still not working? You go to a physiologist and do an air-exchange test to determine your actual metabolic rate based on oxygen consumption.

Basically, you start getting more and more granular in your analysis until you nail it to your satisfaction. Which means more details, more diligence, and more work.I had a hard time starting to lose weight because I didn't weigh my food accurately, logged inflated exercise, and (trickiest) took a long time to find out that my resting metabolism was lower than average.

Of note: weight is only one parameter. For most people this is not really the goal (though they think it is). They want to "look good". Muscle looks good, but it's denser than fat. So they become healthier, shapelier, and happier - and weigh more. Nothing wrong with that - unless you're actually trying to lose total mass (e.g. athletes).

Well there you go. If your legs/butt etc. look more toned to you, then you are replacing fat with muscle, which weighs more. Throw away the scale and keep doing what you are doing. Eventually the number on the scale will drop, but don't obsess over it...take the good results that you are actually seeing and use that as your motivation.

nope, sorry.

extremely hard(if not impossible) to build muscle and burn fat at the same time, i really wish this was on a banner at the top of every page

That's nice. You'll probably feel better and be healthier in the long run. Weight is only one factor. And for sure be patient - it is a gradual change.

Bananas are yummy. Bananas are natural. Bananas also contain 100 calories each. Add some yummy, natural peanut butter and delicious organic, fair trade granola and your snack is 600 calories.

Working out... I hope I don't get a lot of grief here but so it goes: it takes a fair amount of training and work to be able to burn 500 calories in a single session. Most people that start working out simply can't: they have to build up to that. Also: resistance training is not a very efficient calorie burner - it is, however, great for reshaping, toning and building muscle.

My wife had a few frustrating "weight" issues a few years ago. I put that in quotation because it really wasn't: she wasn't happy with how some of her clothes fitted, started working out more (including some "weight management" inefficient work like yoga, but also walking and cycling much more) and eating less empty calories. She lost about 2 lb in a month, but also about 4 inches and was happy again with those clothes.