Feel like giving up, very limited results. Advice?

Are you eating you exercise cals?

Do NOT give up!!!! You just have to keep it up and the results will show!

Are you going over your carbs?? My friend spoke to a nutritionist and her advice was to limit carbs to 30 per meal, 15 for 2 snacks per day. My friend lost weight sticking with this plan. I've noticed personally for myself as well if I keep the carbs down, I lose more. It can be challenging though as alot of foods have both good and bad carbs. Don't give up! We all get discouraged, but in the end it's all worth it!!

if you open your diary we can give more educated suggestions.....

I try not to. I try and stick to 1200 total. Is this wrong?

Eat your exercise calories! MFP adds them back for a reason!

seeing as you only have 12lbs to loose, the weight doesnt come off as quick. they say the last 10pounds is the hardest... your last 10 is also your first 10 lol.

it might help to make ur diary public, we cant give u advice without knowing what you are doing what so ever.

If you eat 1200 a day and then excercise, you arent eating enough. your NET calories has to be 1200, not your food intake calorie number.

Don't give up. Not everyone loses a lot of weight at first there are a few of us who lose very little at first. It took me 6 weeks before I lost any weight. My problem which also could be your is I was putting on muscle and when you trade muscle for fat you may see no change or even a bit of weight gain. As bhb301 said are you eating back your exercise cals? Even if you can't eat them all try to eat a good portion of them back.

if you open your diary we can give more educated suggestions.....

That's what I was thinking.....let us see what you are eating and we can help........................

"The most common cause of a plateau in fat loss is not training-related, however. The most common reason for hitting a wall in fat loss is that your calories are too low and your body has entered starvation mode. Once you start to go into starvation mode, no amount of increased training will help. The only thing that can get you out of starvation mode is eating more. If your calories have been very low and you suspect the starvation response is the culprit, the best thing you can do is keep your food quality "clean" (don’t eat a lot of junk), but raise your calories for a while. You can prevent this type of plateau from occurring again by using the "Zig - Zag" or "High - Low" method of dieting: that is, eat a few days of higher calories and higher carbs followed by a few days of lower calories and lower carbs. On the low calorie/low carb days, you lose body fat rapidly, and before your body can adapt, you raise the calories back up, which increases your metabolic rate and keeps you out of starvation mode." - Tom Venuto

http://www.femalemuscle.com/q_a/question31.htm

ie, EAT MORE CALS

I try not to. I try and stick to 1200 total. Is this wrong?

yes. http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

Hey,

You shouldnt give up,you clearly want to los some weight,so no point in not finishing what you started.
How about opening you diary up so advise may be offered.
Your working out often,so the clue could be in the food intake.Do you drink plenty of water,this will help accelerate matters.
I would suggest getting a bunch of friends to support,we all need support at sometime,plus you get to look at other folks diaries too and you can maybe get some inspiration from these,I know I do.Plus its so good to know that you arent in this alone,there are days when your upport base really are worth their weight in gold.
So keep doing what your doing in the gym and keep trying to hit the mark with your calories and hopefully soon you will see success.
Good luck and best wishes.....
P.S...dont give up.

Don't give up, as it might be the things your eating. Try the HCG diet as that works great, but follow the rules to the T!

Sorry that is really unhealthy! Perhaps my opinion, but they had it all over the news too!:bigsmile:

I know it's frustrating to keep going when you don't see the results. You need to adjust your calories, you are not eating enough since you are working out. You need to figure out how many calories you are burning durning exercise, the tool provide on this site gives you a general idea but if you are doing cardio, I suggest you get a heart rate monitor that also monitors calories. If you are not eating enough you are putting your body into starvation mode and instead of burning the fat for energy, it's burning muscle...bad, bad, bad. I'm a member of Beachbody and I found this short explanation on their website to help you understand.

Back in the days when folks hunted and gathered, there were no 7-Elevens. Because of this, people sometimes had to go for days with little or no food. According to Darwin, people who survived these times of famine were the people who, well, survived these times of famine. And in order to do this, their bodies adapted by slowing down their metabolisms and holding onto emergency fuel supplies (aka "fat") during lean times. This is starvation mode. As your body composition changes, you have to eat to support it. If I can finally turn them around, the scale almost always starts moving again.

You can go for months and months and months exercising and living on 1400 Calories per day. Your body can easily acclimate to this Calorie level. Women who pledge low Calorie for life in order to gain longevity benefits live on 1400 to 1500 Calories for years and years and years. Men who pledge low Calorie for life are on about 1700 to 1800 Calories. These people are very serious about their high quality food choices 100% of the time. They do not eat a piece of birthday cake on their birthdays; they do not eat a traditional holiday meal on any holiday; etc.

I've seen these people and IMO, they don't look as healthy as those of us who eat more than they do. IMO they look scrawny and old by their 30th birthdays - - - but they are looking forward to celebrating their 100th birthdays (without birthday cake). It is a lifestyle choice they have made and they stick with it.

What does this tell you? You are acclimated to eating 1400 Calories per day. Your body is surviving on that and is thus not in a fat loss mode. It is surviving because it has altered what is called the Bioenergetic Equation that describes how your body allocates your fuels (the food you eat) for survival and reproduction. You are putting less Calories toward body heat production and toward activity than you would at a higher Calorie level. You may or may not notice that you feel colder than you did at a higher Calorie intake. You may or may not notice that you simply move slower and you move less all day long through your activities. You may even be sleeping more than before. You may also be putting less Calories toward egg production, immune system function, tissue repair, and other things.

Any Calorie deficit moves the body's Bioenergetic Equation to adjust "down". There are lots of things you can do to fight this adjustment. One important trick of many: make sure the Calorie deficit between energy in (what you eat that is absorbed into the blood stream) and energy out (what you burn or turn into other things like stored glycogen, stored fat, new tissue) isn't overly large. The experts say that the maximum OK deficit between energy in and energy out is 500 to 1000 Calories per day, values which equate to the one to two pounds of loss per week rate. I think for people who don't have much to lose, the deficit should be more like 250 or even 200 Calories per week. Another important trick of many that can be used to fight the "acclimation advantage" (LOL! It is a survival advantage even though with all of this food available we don't look at it as an advantage.) is to not eat the same amount of Calories every day for many days in a row. If you eat maintenance level Calories on some days of the week and deficit level Calories on other days, your body will be less likely to adjust down to the lower Calorie days.

If you want to be super fit and lean, you have to eat and exercise to turn your body into a fat burning machine rather than a fat storing machine.