I am 34, 7 weeks in and on down 7lbs, I feel your pain. Unfortunately, I was advised this is normal. Make sure to eat a powerfuel WITH breakfast, and this should be within an hour of waking up. This starts your metabolism for the day. I made that mistake the first 2 weeks and didn't do these together. Do not add calories for light exercises. Pay attention to startchy vs. Non startchy veggies...... Just a few of my mistakes. Good luck

I had a 2 MONTH plateau...some of the things I tried(meal switching finally jump started me) were ...more water...up the intensity of my walking....changed from walking all at on time to walking less time but more times a day(to keep the metabolism revved)....meal switching(not only did I switch breakfast and dinner, but also switched lunch and snack...it's weird eating ravioli for breakfast and fudge brownies for lunch...pancakes for dinner and bars for dessert...but for me...that's what worked)..... When it finally broke I lost 3.4 lbs in one week...that was 5 weeks ago...EVERY week after that I have lost EXACTLY 1 lb...know what?....I don't care that it's ONLY one lb! After 8 weeks of nothing or a small gain here and there I LOVE seeing ANY loss....hope this helps!!!!!

This is going to be a long post, so I apologize ahead of time. But, I've been where you are, and I just wanted to share some of feelings about this topic. I know how frustrating it can be when you feel you aren't losing quickly enough. This is my second time on NS, and the first time I lost 56 pounds in five months (total of 76 since I'd lost 20 pounds before joining). A number of factors converged and I stopped paying attention and gave up on myself as I gained back 50 pounds. I decided three months ago that I'd had it and signed up again. This time it's not going as fast for me, but I've lost 25 in three months.

A few things that jumped out at me in some of the posts above that I wanted to comment on:

1. The number of calories on your plan is not a ceiling-- you actually have a range. So, if you're on the 1200 plan, I believe your range is 1200 to 1499. You should not be eating below 1200! When I was on NS before, they didn't tell us how many calories were on our plans--you just followed the plan and lost weight. Now that they tell us, I see people really focused on that number; they should really tell people it's a range and not a ceiling.

2. Don't leave out any of your add-ins--you should have all of your PFs and SCs every day. If you're worried getting too many calories that way, then remember the calorie range for a PF or SC is 80 to 120. I tend to max it to 120, but you can always keep it on the low end of 80 as long as you're getting enough protein for a PF and fiber for an SC.

3. "Only" losing 1 pound a week?? That's GREAT! There are a lot of people who'd LOVE to be losing consistently like that!

4. Lynne, you said your exercise level is "high." If that's the case, then you should be adding at least a PF to your diet on days you work out. I'm surprised the counselors haven't told you that!

5. Dessert may seem like a "treat" but it has protein you need and it's part of your program. Don't skip your dessert (I wouldn't want to anyway! LOL).

I know it's really easy to get frustrated when the number on the scale isn't going down. We get really focused on that as THE measure of weight loss, when really there are other measures. As suggested above, take a look at how your clothing is fitting--to me that's even more important than the number on the scale! Also remember that weight loss isn't linear. I've always weight daily, but I've started recording it every morning, and that's really helping me to recognize that just because the scale goes up or doesn't change for a while, that doesn't mean nothing is happening. Here's what the last month or so has looked like for me:

05-03 214.2
05-08 211.8
05-15 212
05-22 212
05-29 210
06-02 208.6
06-03 209
06-04 207.4
06-05 207.6
06-06 207.4
06-07 208.2
06-08 208.2
06-09 207

I'll be interested in seeing if the last six days reflect how my body loses weight--down, up, down, up, same, down.

There are lots of things that work for people to get things moving again, but each of is different, so what works for me may not work for you and vice versa. That said, here are some things I've tried:

• Eating protein in the morning--either at breakfast or for my mid-morning snack (so successful, I now always have a PF at about 10 a.m.)
• Eating "hard" protein--by this I mean having chicken instead of string cheese; my PFs tend to be very high in protein, like chicken, talapia, and shrimp, and my yogurt is Chobani, which is higher in protein than most yogurt brands (another one that's so successful, I do it every day)
• Exercising at least 30 minutes a day (very successful)
• Eating lots of veggies--I eat probably six servings of veggies each day instead of 4. My body responds extremely well to veggies. Good thing I like them! I also eat most of my veggies raw.
• Switching lunch and dinner (haven't done this a lot, but I did do it the middle of May and dropped 2 pounds that week)
• Having a protein shake or other PF after my more intense workouts (I don't know if that's helped me lose more or faster, but it's certainly helped my be less hungry and therefore less likely to binge)
• Eating every two or three hours -- my day looks consistently like this: breakfast at about 7:30 (NS entree and a cup of coffee), PF and some veggies at 10 a.m., lunch at noonish--during the week it's a couple cups of raw veggies and an NS bar, snack of Chobani vanilla 100-cal cup with fresh berries at 3 p.m., dinner--NS entree and more veggies) between 5:30 and 6:30, NS dessert at 8 p.m. I'm freakishly consistent in this and on the rare occasions my schedule messes up this consistency, I've noticed I don't lose as well

And, a last word of encouragement: don't give up!! Sometimes you need to tweak things here and there to figure out what works for your body. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. It seems counter-intuitive to eat more to lose weight, but if you've got a lot to lose or you're very active or you're tall (I'm kind of a freak of nature at 6'1", so I'm familiar with this one!) then 1200 calories isn't going to be enough for you. I do believe you can slow down your weight loss by eating too few calories and as hard as it is to convince yourself that you're not losing because you're not eating enough, often times it's true! You have to fuel your body to help it along.

I hope that helps someone. I know it was a long rant, but as I said, I've been there and just wanted to share that you're not alone! But, you CAN be successful! Here are my before and after photos from last time--hope they'll serve as a little inspiration. I'm well on my way back to the after. Now, I just need to figure out the maintenance part!

Fantastic post, Beesma.

And, WOW ........ you look GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!

No, it's "look". I looked and it's LOOK. LOL!

Beesma.....thanks for the great reminders and encouragement....