Frustrated! Anyone want to do the math for me?!

How are you determining your calorie intake (food scale/measuring cups/eyeballing portions)?

No offense, but 5'3" is not really short. It is pretty close to the average to 5'5". Even at 51 with your stats your bmr will be around 1300, meaning with your added activity your daily burn is probably more that 1700 calories. With what you want to lose a big deficit would not be beneficial, so this will be a slow process, get that into your mind from the start.

The biggest question might not be your calorie goal, but how precisely you are logging. Hopefully you 1) Logging everything you eat and drink including fruits, veggies, and even small candies. 2) Weighing solids and using measuring spoons and cups for liquids. 3) Verifying as well as you can that the food database entries match up with the foods you are actually eating. Even using bar codes you can get incorrect numbers either because the wrong thing comes up or because there are regional differences.

If you are logging precisely, then there may be other issues, but first it is important to know whether you are logging precisely.

Hi, I've had a look at your diary and ran your numbers through a couple of calculators. And I would say there are two things in play here, one more likely the cause than the other.

1) this is probably not the cause but it is worth the check up.
You are at some stage of menopause, and although I firmly believe it is not a hinderance to weight loss in and of itself, medical problems that can arise from the hormone disruption, decrease in estrogen and increase in testosterone, leading to an increase in visceral fat, can be. Get a check up for thyroid and type II diabetes, at the very least, cholesterol and blood pressure too.


2) it is more than likely your logging. It happens to a lot of us, we either start with inaccurate entries and never revise them, or we become a little complacent over time.
Revise your logging practices and what entries you are using from your personal 'recent' database.
You may have to start searching for more accurate entries for some things.
Use grams and ml for your measurements, they are a lot more accurate.
And like @rileysowner said measure everything. If your scale isn't a tarring digital one, invest in one (Costco have one that does fluids too for less than $20).

If you are using spoons and cups for liquids make sure they are ml liquid spoons, not solid measuring spoons or eating spoons.

You should be able to lose on more than what you are eating now, your trainer is correct. Your food input is not supporting your activity level.

I lost 1 lbs a week on 1200 (+125-175exercise calories) at the age of 55, 130 lbs and 5'1. I say that not as an if I did you can, but more to let you know I understand where you are coming from.
When petite with little to lose it is the logging that can make all the difference, barring untreated medical conditions.

Cheers, h.

I'm 5'4, and was doing 1200 + half my exercise calories for a few months, and it worked well, but was warned by my doctor that once I was out of the 'obese' category, I needed to go up. I'm at 1330 now + plus half my exercise calories (so around 1500 a day) and seem be losing about a pound a week or so, give or take.

Interesting about the blood pressure! I'm technically pre-hypertensive, but over the past three weeks have started having more 'normal' range readings (I check twice a day). Curious now if that's due to metabolism changes rather than just fitness levels.

I loved that article. I do think the mantra of he who eats more an loses wins is true to some extent, but it gets stated so often here that people are afraid not to eat more even when they don't need it or want it. 1200 to1500 a day depending on how hard I work is more than enough for my energy levels to stay up. It also helps with that whole inaccurate logging thing. A tiny deficit would drive me mad.

I wouldn't workout for longer than an hour. If you are workingout for over an hour, that's too much. I am 5'2", 35 and weight 120. I am maintaining and MFP has me at 1490 calories/day and I workout 4 to 5 times a week for about an hour. I also have an office job, so I have it set at sedentary. Do you eat more on the days you workout? Have you tried working out less maybe?

I'm in a completely different place but I've noticed two things that may help you. 1. Sometimes the scale alone isn't the best way to see changes. Pictures of your body and face to compare can be really helpful in noting changes that the scale would never pick up on, hydration/nutrition/vitality or glow as well as fat/muscle. Same with the tape measure or calipers, if your body composition is changing then the scale can be misleading and adding other measurements might help you figure out what is going on with YOUR body that no internet calculator can generically tell you. Essentially, I wouldn't over focus on three pounds or decreasing calories without further evidence that you gained FAT rather than waterweight and or muscle this past month.

Well you are wondering why you have not been loosing weight lately and I believe the reason why is that you are not consuming enough calories, and on top of that, you are workingout too much for the amount of calories you are eating. Some days you are not even getting the minimum which is 1200/day. You are right, you can workout every day of the week if you want, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. You don't have to take my advice at all and wish you the best of luck . I lost 100 lbs and I know what works for me, hope you figure out what works for you too .