I know I shouldn't judge my progress on this but why is dial on the scale not moving?!

If you just started with the excerise routine, you may be retaining water used in muscle recovery. Water retention will mask any weight loss you may have experienced.

Also, your diary isn't open so we can't review it to see if there are any obvious issues. If you aren't weighing your food (on a scale), you may be overeating which could completely void the deficit you think you're eating. Also, make sure you are using accurate entries. I've seen many entries that are user-generated that are way off on calories, protein, fat, carbs, or all of the above.

Don't know I'm having pretty much the same problem so as on from today I've lowered my cal to 1200.

Did you take beginning measurements?? I find measurements more helpful than the number on the scale, in fact I rarely weigh myself. Get a tapemeasure , and do measurements once a week. Especially if you're doing more weights than cardio this could be helpful

It takes time! You have to allow a 2 to 4 week buffer period in order to find what works best for you. I had to play with my calories for the first few weeks to find the rite combination for me. If your doing weights it is crucial that you meet your macro requirements especially protein. Since you are trying to cut weight and maitain muscle mass protein is very important. Just keep doing what your doing and eventually the weight will come off.

forgechris153 wrote: »

Not giving up and no I don't use a scale to weigh my food, I just use the "fist size" portion size. I use measuring cups for serving sizes when available so I do my best. I am just wondering if my deficit is too much. I am working out 5 days a week and I just calculated my TDEE and it says to maintain with working out I should be consuming 2600 calories a day, so if I want a fat loss I should really be doing 2000-2100 calories. So is going under 1900 calories too much (I got that goal from MFP's goal suggestion).

My diary is now open to the public so please view if you can. And thanks for all the help already. MFP has a great community!

MFP numbers are estimates based on some super complicated calculation. They are relatively close to true numbers though, close enough that you should be losing if you've only been on here for a few weeks and following the numbers.

From what you've said, I believe you are overeating and don't realize it. If you are using the fist measuring method or measuring cups, you may be dishing up more than you believe. Measuring cups are great for liquids, but they are garbage when it comes to solids. Think about it, how easy is it to measure a cup of broccoli, or pasta, or french fries? It doesn't work very well because these are all items that are odd shaped. And the fist measuring guide is a guess, and sometimes it can be off by quite a bit. You should only use this method in the "one off" circumstances, like when at a restaurant where you don't take your kitchen scale.

As for entry issues, here are some common things (some of which I noticed in your diary):
-Homemade items (like beef stew), did you input that or did you find that entry in the database? The database entry may have used more or less beef than you did, more or less veggies, etc.. You should create that as a recipe if you are going to eat it often.
-Fruits and veggies should be weighed then logged. Logging a banana by measurement is highly inaccurate. I used to log my "medium" banana as 80 calories because it fit in the medium measurements. WHen I stated weighing my banana, I realized i had been underestimating those calories by 30-70 calories based on weight. That doesn't seem like much, but it adds up over time if you eat a banana everyday.
-Peanut butter: you should weigh this then log it. You'd be surprised how off your tablespoon can be. I used to log peanut butter as 1 or 2 tablespoons, then actually started weighing it. What I was logging as 2 tablespoons was equivalent to 3 tablespoons weight wise. Again, doesn't seem like much, but that's an extra 100 calories each time I ate peanut butter.
-The "Chicken, rotisserie" that you're logging is probably inaccurate. It might be accurate for someone, but what is a serving that you're logging? (You've logged 2 servings today and yesterday). If you don't know what the serving size is for the entry you use, you shouldn't use it. That serving could be 3 ounces or 6 ounces. You have no way of knowing. -Almonds: make sure you weigh them. Measuring them out can give you a serving and a half to two servings, while it will only look like one per the measuring cup. If you were to weigh it, you would see that a serving size is actually smaller than you can scoop with a measuring cup.

Hope that helps to get you started!

Yeah, I agree with ^. In all probability, you're eating too much, not too little.

See if you can pick up a little food scale (usually $15-$20 on Amazon) and weigh everything solid that you eat for a few weeks. You might be surprised at how inaccurate the fist measurement method actually is.

And sometimes not all the time I will eat back my calories from training.