What am I doing wrong????

You need to look at what your eating. And are you eating back your exercise calories? If not, your body is in starvation mode and is storing everything you eat. If you havent lost any weight in 7 weeks, it sounds like you need to really look at what your eating and how much. Friend me and let me look at your food diary. Maybe I can help.

If you are doing weights 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes you may be building more muscle mass which will weigh more. Did you take starting measurements (waist, hip etc.)? Do your clothes feel different? Just don't give up. All that new muscle mass has got to kick up that metabolism. Good luck!

Can you get your thyroid checked? Its a simple blood test, but in know it can affect your metabolism.

Can you open up your diary? You'll probably get a lot more advice if you do.

Ok I need help bad. I have been on a serious diet and exercise routine for 7 weeks now and I cant seem to lose any weight. I have uped my calorie intake three times. I started at 1200 then 1300 and now I try to eat 1400 but I struggle to eat that many. I also go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I do 30 mins of intense cardio and about 30 minutes of weights. I dont know what im doing wrong and why all the sudden I cant lose. Im getting extremely discouraged and want to quit. PLEASE HELP.......
I posted this in the motivation and got nothing so I will try here now! : )

Let me see your food diary....also what is your water intake a day?

Maybe you have a thyroid problem?

your might want to go see your physician to clear any thyroid, insulin resistance...problems. make sure you mention this to him

I looked at your diet... It doesn't seem like you are getting enough food. You are eating enough calories...but it seems there is a lot of processed food. Eat clean foods if you can fruit, veggies, and stuff with only a few ingredients on the label. Your body cant break up foods that are made up of hormones and sugars which are in almost all processed foods. Good luck!

I looked over your food diary and it appears that you are very carb heavy and you're not eating enough protein. Carbs energize the body (much like what gas does for a car) and protein repairs and rebuilds. I would suggest bringing your carbs and protein to a more equal balance and lower your fat intake. Try the 40/40/20 approach with fat being the lower of the two. Are you recording every single thing you're eating...if not, you're only cheating yourself. If you are then there are days when you are not even eating 1,000 calories and your body is going into starvation mode. You need to eat to lose weight. I am a NASM certified personal trainer and I have clients that utilize myfitnesspal.com and have been having tremendous success. I monitor what they take in and they work out with me three days a week for 30 minutes and an additional 20 to 30 minutes of cardio after our resistance training. your workouts should be challenging and you have to keep changing things up to keep the body confused in order to see change. If you are doing all these things and you are not seeing any results then I would suggest a visit to your doctor to have your hormone levels and thyroid levels checked out. Good luck to you and I will check back in with you from time to time.

I totally agree with Neotiger. Sodium levels are way too high....you have to be retaining alot of water. Your foods are all processed. Start eating fresh fruits, vegetables and lean meats. Listen to how your body feels after you fuel it with good things. See how your body responds to giving it good nutrition. You WILL have more energy, your skin will glow and your hair will shine. Being skinny and making healthy life changes are all about the choices we make on a daily basis. Teach yourself how to lose weight the correct way and the weight will come off and stay off. I don't mean to sound harsh but I do preach the truth because if you continue to sugar coat everything, you will never make the changes it is going to take to lose weight for the last time!!

So I would like to help you out and some are going to disagree with my advice but I would refer you to Alan Aragons blog, Google him, he is a nutritionist with more than a decades experience, earned his masters and phd with top honors etc etc etc.

Calories are calories so my first thought is make sure you are accounting for everything. Drinks, snacks, everything. Secondly make sure you verify what MFP and say a USDA nutritional value states for calories. (Such as grilled chicken on here is about 28 calories per ounce but that is an uncooked weight despite being labled as grilled. Grilled chicken cooked is about 46 calories an ounce.)

So with that said, you can not gain significant weight in muscle when on a calorie deficit and even a natural bodybuilder struggles to build more than a few pounds of muscle when new and eating at a calorie deficit. Some weight is gained when first starting to lift weights but that is due to the cells storing more glycogen and water for energy.

It is possible that your body is in starvation mode if your calories are being acurately accounted for IF you were eating the same calories for months prior to these 7 weeks and losing lots of weight. If this is the case which seems next most likely then it is often recommended you do a refeed, or replenish your bodys glycogen stores by eating your maintenance level for a week.

Also people use the word "clean" far to much, I did at one point in time but what does it really mean? The difference between brown rice and white rice wont make a bit of difference in your lifetime unless it was the only thing you ate. With that said "healthier or cleaner" foods that are less processed etc will tend to make you feel better but dont play a role in weight loss otherwise.

You should make sure you get an appropriate amount of protein in a day to prevent muscle loss (your body will burn it instead of fats if it doesnt get enough, and enough fats as they regulate your hormones as well as other things like lubricating joints etc.

If you have more qustions I will try to help.

Dont give up, keep up the hard work.

P.S. Your sodium also will not effect weight loss but it can cause high blood pressure. If you dont have hypertention problems then you dont need to worry about this as much.

Edit: I would also like to say dont just take anyones word for it, I dont refer to Alan Aragon just because I agree with him, its because he analyzes the research and makes informed decisions, even changing his own opinions as new research comes out.

If you hate meat look for others on here who are vegetarians (there were some great posts yesterday looking for friends, do a search) and embrace that lifestyle. Being a vegetarian may be a great option for you, and having resources will help you do it right. Also, if you have a farmers market in your area (we have a few where I live) you can get produce very inexpensively, especially if you eat what's in season and not just what you're craving.

As far as which way burns more calories you hear it both ways from different people. I know for me personally I feel way more exhausted when I do weights and then cardio but I've had good results the other way as well. If you are doing both either way as long as it's getting done is the key. Endeavor to persevere through all the ups and downs. Persistence will pay off. Also, I'm circuit training right now with the Men's Health Spartacus workout. If you want to try something different it has done amazing things for me over a few weeks. I highly recommend it.

I'm a vegetarian and have been vegan on and off for the past five years. I started out as what I would call a junk food vegetarian thinking that being a vegetarian was a good thing. It is for me.. but not if you live off garbage. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.