Not making any progress-what am I doing wrong?

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Yeah, what is this health insurance BS? If they're going by the (admittedly sometimes flawed) measure of BMI, even 140 would put you in the healthy range. That is so infuriating--there's a range for a reason!

Trixiegirl66 wrote: »

I am 50 years old and have been posting about what has happened with my weight loss journey - I am sharing in the hopes it helps you. At 5'6" I sat at 170 pounds for years - that is 22 pounds over what I weighed 9 months along with my twins pregnancy. I joined MFP and began logging a couple years ago, only to barely lose 4 pounds, despite keeping well under my caloric and fat allowance, even while walking and strength training. I felt sluggish, had crap blood work results at the doctors, and looked like I lived on junk food.

In June of this year, I turned 50 and had a small health scare, which led me to look into what might be the real problem. My research led me to read up on Dr. Mark Hyman and his theory that the average American is better off without gluten or dairy. So with removing about 90 percent of the gluten from my diet, and nixing milk and half and half, not only am I losing weight, but I am now halfway to my goal weight! If you look at my diary, you will see that I rarely have a deficit and am quite often well over what MFP suggested for fat and calories.

More importantly, my health and quality of life has improved dramatically since making these changes. For instance, my blood pressure has gone from 130/88 to 110/73 and I sleep at night with no more insomnia. I no longer bloat up or carry water weight in my hands or feet, and my skin is better now than it was in my profile picture.

So here is my thought, why not try to lose the gluten and dairy, and see if this works for you, I do not measure or weight food, and am never hungry eating this way. It has been a real life changer for me on so many levels, and I feel compelled to share with MFP members who ask for suggestions,

Best of luck!

It's awesome you found something that works for you, but if cutting out gluten and dairy caused you to lose weight, it's because you naturally started eating less calories.

There are literally thousands of people on this website who have lost all their extra weight and improved their health markers while eating gluten and dairy, myself included.

Trixiegirl66 wrote: »

Kimny72, actually I am eating between 500 to 700 MORE calories since cutting out the gluten and dairy. Seriously, back when I would keep the calories around 1350, I had great difficulty in losing a mere 4 pounds. Look at my food diary, and you will see that I am eating between 1700 and 2000 on a regular basis, and have since lost a great deal of pounds and body fat since my birthday in June.

I have no doubt that people have lost weight while consuming gluten and dairy, but from the N.I.H and Dr. Hyman, to the dozens of university studies I have found on line, it seems that gluten and dairy are directly tied to many health conditions, not to mention obesity.

And while I didn't tell the OP it was the only way - I am certain this change in lifestyle is behind my recent weight loss and improved health.

Could you link to one of these studies? Because I have never seen anything scientifically viable that shows that either gluten or dairy can somehow cause your body to defy the laws of science.

And I have nothing nice to say about Hyman, so I'm just going to leave that alone.

OP has only had this problem for 2 WEEKS, she said she was doing well up until then. She doesn't need to cut two huge categories of food out of her diet, she just needs to be patient and let the water weight she has most likely gained dissipate.