Help Please... Weight Loss Questions

Are you getting enough water in? I reccomend tracking your sodium- too much sodium can cause you to retain.... I would watch your sugar numbers too.

The walking you are referring to-do you wear a heart rate monitor to track your calories? If not you may be overestimating how many calories you are burning. Make sure your heart rate is up and it is a brisk walk. Try changing it up with a different exercise such as an exercise video or class. Add in some weight training. Also please take your measurements as the scale doesn't always tell the whole truth.

You need to find what works for you, every person has their optimal calories Vs. exercise combination.

However, you should have lost something in 1 month so there are a few things you need to tweak:
1) up water to 10 cups per day - 8 is not enough
2) ensure your NET calories are 1200 AFTER exercise (ALWAYS eat at least 1/2 of those exercise calories)
3) get plenty of sleep, 7 hours if you can at least
4) do not eat at least 2 1/2 hours before bed
5) ensure your calories are from "clean" and healthy food, nothing processed
6) up the intensity of your workouts

When I started I had 80 pounds to lose, at that time I could drop from 2 to 4 pounds per week now that I only have about 25 pounds left I typically only will lose 1/2 pound to 2 pounds per week at the most. The most you can lose is typically about 8 pounds per month as a result.

Tweak the above items and give yourself the gift of patience.

Thanks for the advice I will try that... the struggle will be the water intake and well as those calories... some days i have a very hard time reaching 1200 before and sometimes after exercising...but i will try... :happy:

It seems as if everything I eat has lots of sodium in it... And my sugar count is high because I do eat lots of fruit, but when I do that my sugar exceeds for the day so I figured I would eat less of it.

I am so confused... :sad:

It does depend a lot on the kind of fruit. Berries and apples have lots of fiber in them, so the sugar doesn't hit your blood stream in the same way that it does if you eat tropical fruits like bananas. I know a lot of people who swear that they just can't lose weight if they eat bananas and the chemistry might support their claims.

The thing with MFP is although it tracks your caloires it cant tell if its good or bad food thats going in you.

Lets say you have a 100 calorie snack, do you choose
A. a small apple and maybe a few berries...100 calories
or
B. some sort of low fat no fat reduced sugar synthetic triple chocolate chip cookie...100 calories
They may both be the same calories but we know what ones are best for us. Im guilty of choosing the tasty cookie on occasions but the thing about losing weight is you have to learn to make the right choices...mfp is here to help and support us to do that.

Like the other have said maybe your sodium is making you retain water but im guessing you want to lose more than just water, you want to burn the fat away too. The only way to burn fat is to excercise. If you feel you arent reaching the goals you want then the codl hard truth is you have to step it up a little…clearly what your doing isnt working for you...train for longer and cut out all the little things you see as treats. Yes its hard but come vacation time it will be 100% worth it.

Sorry to sound like the party pooper but I speak from experience and there is nothing worse than feeling like your trying so hard only to get on the scale and it doesn’t move…and even worse when you put on the jeans and they still don’t tie!
I really hope you can surpass some of your goals and feel great for your vacation! 

I have to agree with a lot of what has been said. Your sodium is high, I actually didn’t see listed what your fat intake is, you are not drinking enough water either. On the diet front:
1) Drink lots of water, and only water. 100-150 ounces per day. Stay away from diet drinks, artificial sweeteners will slow weight lose.
2) You need to eat healthier foods: Fruit is high in sugar, some is good, a lot is not; salad is mostly devoid of nutritional value contrary to popular belief; 100 calorie snack packs are not healthy for you, just lower in calories but the same bad cookie is still bad if it is small.
3) Take a high quality supplement. I mean more than just a multi-vitamin, you are nutritionally empty, and your body will not function right until you get that fixed. That’s just what poor eating gets you. I started mine about 7 weeks ago now.
4) I saw on your food diary you are eating a good bit of chicken, skin removed. Good, but you are eating dark meat, drums, wings. Dark meat has more internal fat than white meat such as a skinless boneless breast. Half of a large breast is about 4oz. That is all you should be eating at one time.

Now on to exercise . You say you walk a lot at work, great! But that’s not exercise. Exercise is getting your heart into your target heart rate and maintaining that intensity for a minimum of 15 minutes. I get up from my desk and walk around too, but that’s just not enough. Find a program you can do at home, gym, whatever for 35-45 minutes per day. That’s all you need, that’s all I do, 6 days per week.

Feel free to look at my exercise and food diary. I have went from 318 to today’s weight of 287.8 in about 7 ½ weeks. You can do it, but you have to be serious about everything. Less calories (which you are doing), better food (You can improve), regular intense exercise (I think you can improve there too)

Hope this helps