Can't lose weight

Do you weigh/measure and log your foods?

If not...start. That's step one.

You have to have a baseline of how many calories you're eating a day (on average) before you can start making adjustments.

After about 2 years doing MFP, the biggest thing I've learned (and continue to learn) is that I want to eat WAY, WAY too much food.

When I started, I logged a 'typical" day and found I was eating/drinking about 4,000 calories. According to my weight and age at that time, I should have been eating around 2,500. It's so incredibly easy to do it. Just have a 2nd helping. Have a couple beers or sodas. Go out to eat at a restaurant. Treat yourself to a little ice cream. BOOM - you're way, way, over. It's no wonder we have an obesity epidemic. What we consider "normal" eating is really feasting.

These days, I eat about 2,250 and burn at least 500 calories in the gym most days - and that deficit helps offset the occasional "free day" where I eat 4,000 calories again. I can do that without being hungry in the least. But I have to be careful and log everything carefully. If I don't, my weight starts to creep up again.

Use a calculator like the one below to determine your TDEE (how many calories you burn in a day). Then make sure you eat under that number, and you will lose weight. It's simple math. Consider investing in a heart-rate monitor (I love my Polar) to see if you're really burning as many calories at work as you think you are. I don't typically log anything other than real exercise unless I'm working hard in the yard or something. On this calculator I use "Desk Job" and factor my exercise in separately into my equations. Hope that helps!

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

How many calories are you eating? Food type is irrelevant if you're eating too much.

x2 ^^^

Honestly I would measure your food if you are not. I can eat only one round of whatever I put on my plate but it's so easy to stack your plate with 1000 calories and have no idea unless you are counting and measuring everything. Before I started counting cheesy squash was one of my favorite foods but I had no idea that the way I cooked it was nearly 500 Calories for a 1 cup serving of something I thought was modestly healthy. It's easy to think we are being healthy if we don't know the real values of the food we are eating.

It's easy to underestimate calorie intake. It's also hard to estimate calories out! No slam to MFP but if I put in 30 minutes on the elliptical it credited me with 450 calories burned. Then I decided to get the Body Media Armband. I actually burn 300. But that INCLUDES my basic metabolic rate for that time as well so it's only 270 EXTRA calories burned above what I need for that same 30 minutes being sedentary. Also the less you weight the less calories needed to maintain the lower weight.

What about logging every morsel accurately for about a week. Now you know how many calories you need to MAINTAIN your weight and will have to cut about 500 down per day for a 1-pound/week loss.

To help with that, incorporate a healthy morning and afternoon snack if you need to (counting the calories and including those in your daily count, of course) like an apple dipped in a small amount of peanut butter, etc. Combine a high fiber carb with a protein/fat combination for instant energy/satisfaction + lasting energy/no recurring hunger.

Fabulous on the first 60 pounds, though!!! You've got this!

Add me and I'll check out your food diary.

You're getting good advice here.

You've already got a leg up on a lot of us -- you've got an active job. That makes it easier to lose, for sure.

And great job losing that first 70 pounds -- that's quite an accomplishment in itself!

Definitely log your food -- keeping a food diary is easily one of the biggest enablers for losing weight. And the MFP app on a smartphone makes it way easy. Weighing the food is optional -- it's more accurate, but I'm all about starting with as simple as possible -- log everything you eat or drink for a week, and then you can figure out what you need to cut to start losing the weight.

A serving of lean meat (generally) is about the size of a deck of playing cards.

The first time I measured out a serving of breakfast cereal and a serving of milk, I was flabbergasted. I was sure that I would starve to death before 9 am.

My typical spaghetti dinner used to be on the order of 4 to 5 servings on a single plate.

My "special healthy" popcorn treat added a 500-calorie cherry to the top of my 3,000 calorie day.

This is how many of us get obese -- portion distortion. I think sometimes people who have never been obese look at us and think we must eat pizza for breakfast, ice cream for elevenses, lard for lunch, tacos and burritos at tea time, and more pizza for dinner, all washed down with a Big Gulp. But that's just not the case.

Go to the Goodwill, get some 8-10 inch dinner plates.

All great advice. When I started using mfp I was logging regularly but I haven't logged in months. I have a hard time remembering to log. I think my biggest problem has been discipline and motivation. I need to download the app again and get back on track. Thank you all for the advice.

^^ this is why.

Download the app, log your food. Consume less than you burn and you'll lose weight