Really need some advice and thoughts on why I'm not losing weight!!

You are spot on at a healthy BMI, and will be so anytime you are between 135 and 140. My advice is to not stress so much about a pound or two, but to make sure you remain active and enjoy your life. If there are parts of your body you aren't content with, try lifting weights to help tone. You are doing a wonderful job of maintenance right now, so I'd focus on that.
You've done a fantastic job, and don't discount that by stressing over a pound or two. :-)
Kaye

Is all this worth it for one pound? Truly, seriously?

We don't even know where your body is going to sit most happily, you are already on the lowish side of normal and have lost a ton. How about writing out all the good things that have come from your weight loss. Health and shape benefits, improvements to your life. Weigh these against the additional pound. Will that get you an improvement in these areas?

When I started accurately measuring my coffee creamer I found it was 140 calories more per day than I was guestimating.
When I accurately measured the olive oil I cook with, I found I was consuming about 200 more per day than I had guestimated.
Accurate measurements of ketchup and mayonnaise revealed another 90 calories per day.
And I like a good bourbon drink. I was off by 100 calories per drink.

You did say you log everything, and I believe you. However, if you are at 1500 calories per day, accurately measured, and you are exercising like you say, you should be losing weight.

I am not trying to be offensive, but 9 times out of 10 the problem is with inaccuracy in measuring your calories.

Best of luck to you!

Brandon

You could try something like the Scooby workshop as an alternate method of accounting for calories eaten and burned.

I’m confused. Are you eating back 100% of your exercise calories? And you say you burn 800-900 calories per day exercising?

(I just snooped on your profile. Go Cougs!)

I'm much shorter...only 5'3 (on a good day lol) I don't eat back my exercise calories because everything I have ever seen always overestimates calories burned. Try only eating 1/2 to no exercise calories back and see if that makes a difference. BUT at your height I think you are at a perfect weight.

If you've been on here over a year and lost almost 100 pounds, surely you must know how this works by now.

Of course, it's possible that after 400 days, you've gotten a little lax with your logging accuracy or with sticking to the plan. That's normal. Maybe you just need to re-focus on what you're doing.

Also, it's possible that your body is just happier at a few pounds heavier than what you set as your goal weight. You're at a very healthy weight for your height and age.

If I had one pound to lose and it didn't seem to be going away, I think I would fast for a could of days, just to see it go away. But that's just me.

TimothyFish wrote: »

If I had one pound to lose and it didn't seem to be going away, I think I would fast for a could of days, just to see it go away. But that's just me.

Seriously? I think that’s a terrible idea. If you tighten up your deficit, you will lose the weight. There’s no need to not eat anything at all.

You obviously know what you're doing, but to get that last pound or so off, you are probably going to have to be even more accurate than you were before. You've figured out maintenance, so you need to shave 125 calories per day for the next month to lose 1 pound or 250 calories for the next two weeks.

Some areas where I can see room for improvement -
-weigh your bananas/fruits/veggies, etc. when at home. Unless you are cutting off the excess amount, I doubt you ate 118 grams 3 days in a row. It may not be much, but it all adds up when you are this close.

-no more quick adds - if you have the NI of what you ate, enter it. If you don't, try entering the ingredients or googling the item. It's not going to be exact, but it may be closer than what you had before.

-the Starbucks and other foods prepared outside your house are not able to be controlled as you need it to be with this small of a deficit. If they put an extra shot of syrup, extra splash of milk or an extra bit of whipped cream on at Starbucks, you could easily have 25-50 calories more than listed. An extra squirt of butter flavoring at the movie theater can be an extra 100 calories.

-even pre-portioned packaged foods have been known to be off, usually they are heavier than listed. You might try weighing your yogurts, cottage cheeses, etc. for a while just to make sure the calories are as exact as can be.

-I don't know how often you eat canned soup, etc., but I saw one day where you logged 2 C progresso light soup - did you really eat 2 C worth or did you eat a can? Those labels are misleading because they are labelled as about 2 servings when in fact they are 2.2 servings if you compare the weight of a serving vs. the weight of a full can.

All of the things I mentioned are generally small issues and don't matter a whole lot when you have a bigger deficit. When you have a small deficit, you have to make sure your food logging is 100% on point and that your exercise logging is also on point. If you are off 10 calories here, 25 there, etc., you could easily wipe out your expected deficit.

I would personally aim to hit 1700 calories per day (gross, not net) for 2-4 weeks and see if that doesn't get you where you need to be. That should create enough of a deficit that you should see a small loss.