Not losing weight-- what am I doing wrong?

MUSCLE DOES NOT WEIGH MORE THAN FAT. If I see that one more time I'm going to lose my mind!

1lb of muscle = 1lb of fat ... because ONE POUND EQUALS ONE POUND

That being said, one pound of muscle may be leaner than one pound of fat. So, rather than seeing a change on your scale you may see a change in your body shape (although you mentioned an inch off of your waist and a half an inch off of your hips - if I am quoting you correctly, apologies if those numbers are off) so that doesn't seem to be what's going on.

I hope you find a schedule for working out and a mindset that make you happy and less stressed! best of luck with the rest of your journey!

You don't gain muscle at the same rate that you lose water/fat, so noob muscle gain for the OP wouldn't stall the scale.

Increased water retention due to exercise however....

True. My rant was more about the ever quoted "muscle weighs more than fat" line.

For the past month and a week, I've been working out 5-6 days per week. I do various exercises each time but I usually start with a 30-40 minute 12% incline, 3.8mph treadmill walk OR a 30-40 minute intense crossfit workout. Then I always do 10-15 minutes of moderately intense to intense row machine work. After this I'll spend another 20-30 minutes doing various weights, abdominal exercises, etc etc (I have a personal trainer and I mostly utilize the various exercises she has shown me). At the end of the day I usually end up burning anywhere between 1200-1800 calories from workouts, depending on how intense the workouts were and how much I walked that day (usually 30min-2 hours of walking daily).

My daily calorie intake is around 1200-1850 calories (1850 would be the bad days, usually 1 a week). I have a food scale and religiously weigh and record everything.

Problem is.... not only have I not lost weight since I started working out again, but I've gained 2 pounds. This isn't the first time I've tried to lose weight. In the fall I lost around 15 pounds in a month and I wasn't being nearly as good with my workouts (3-4 a week).

I figured that maybe I had a thyroid issue so I asked one of my nurse friends. She says that was good thinking, but considering I was just recently losing weight, chances are the thyroid problems wouldn't kick in so quickly and perhaps the complete lack of weight loss is due to hormonal issues due to stress (ironically I'm the MOST stressed out about not losing weight....very helpful).

Has anyone else had any issues such as this before or have any insight or advice that could point me in the right direction?

I'm not just walking 2-3 hours. I'm doing that in addition to being at the gym for an hour or 2. In an average day I'm up and moving around 4 hours.

But like everyone seems to be saying, I guess I'm eating too much. I already feel like I'm starving and light-headed all day so Idk how eating even less is supposed to make me healthy... but apparently I need to.

Please don't tell me I'm making "excuses". I'm trying VERY VERY VERY hard. It's all I think about and all I've been focusing energy on. I'm not making excuses. I'm very frustrated, hurt, and confused. No sass is necessary. I'll just see my doctor.

How much of your workout, exercise calories are you eating back? I saw in a previous post that your net calories could be anywhere from -300 to 500 and if that is the case you may not be eating enough if your spending so much time moving and being active. If your not eating enough calories to fuel your workouts your body will start to go into starvation mode and will hold onto everything to protect itself. I personally find that if my net calories fall below consistently fall below 1200, I stop losing weight. I'm also finding that if I work out too hard too many days in a row, I also stop losing no matter how much I eat or don't eat.

As my youngest son recently commented, this whole dieting and eating healthy this is really hard. Especially knowing what you should be eating and how much you should be working out. It's a delicate balance, and there is no formula that works for every single person out there. Hang in there! Even if the scale isn't moving in the direction you want, you're out there exercising and making better food choices and doing good things for yourself. If your health plan allows and your still frustrated, maybe meeting with a nutritionist could help as well, they could look at what you're logging and your work outs and provide insight.

I am a firm believer in that I can't out exercise my mouth. So finding a balance between exercise, rest and good food seems to do the trick at least for me.