Feeling really discouraged today.

Hi so sorry to hear what you're going through. It's definitely frustrating when you're putting effort in but the scales aren't moving.

Honestly the first thing I would recommend is setting goals not based on the scales. Being able to walk/run further than last week without being out of breath, lifting a pb, learning a new dance, increasing mobility through stretches etc. Whatever it is or however small these can be great achievements and sources of motivation.

The next is doing some maths. It'll never be exact but I looked up what the BMR is for someone of my size (173cm/5'8" starting at 110kg/240lbs) and put that against how much I wanted to lose each week (net calorie deficit of 550cal/day to lose 0.5kg/week or 1100cal/day to lose 1kg a week). For reference it takes 7700 calories to lose 1kg. For me that adds up to 1800cal intake and burning 1000cal each day as I am quite an active person, I can reduce the calories I take in on rest days or increase them if I'm working out. I'm also not afraid to adjust as I go.

For me that understanding of my caloric needs jumpstarted what was initially a slow start to something more effective while still being sustainable.

Sustainability is the key, small changes add up over time. Try one for a week or so and add as things progress. I'll list some of mine that have worked for me:

- limit juice/soft drinks to meal times and carry water with you
- find healthier alternatives to your favourite foods like homemade pizza or low calorie ice cream instead of cutting them out of your diet completely
- pre-prep veggies by cutting them up and putting them in the freezer to limit prep time and waste/cost when cooking
- eating off of smaller plates to reduce portion sizes
- incorporate snacks or eating out into your daily calories
- brush your teeth after meals to limit snacking
- make your night routine earlier to limit late night snacking and improve sleep
- eat enough so you're full throughout the day to reduce binging
- try low impact stretching before bed
- don't buy high sugar snacks, you'll get used to them not being in the house so you're less likely to crave them

Again, it looks like a lot but adding in slowly means they don't feel like a lot. Even if it means losing weight more slowly it means like it's more likely to stay off as I don't feel miserable doing it and I'm not overly restricting myself.

I get where you're coming from. I've struggled with my weight since puberty and it's frustrating. This is what I've found has worked for me. Sorry for the long post. I'm not sure if it'll help but I wish you the best. Good luck

Sorry to hear of your frustration. I second the advice to weigh food on a kitchen scale if you aren’t already doing so. Also, 15 lbs of water weight sounds like a lot, and the “gain”!of 8 means you are down 7 over a couple months, which sounds like progress. It’s not uncommon to have the pattern of loss you are showing; I always think of it as “consolidating”!the loss—some fat here, some water loss/return to normal after shedding a Lot, plus a plateau as I gained a little muscle from increasing exercise. Maybe if you think of it this way while taking a second look at your intake, you will see progress.

Are you logging your over-goal days, like the wine and stuff of a Saturday? That would also be a good thing to do, if you aren't, even if you have to estimate.

Unfortunately, it is possible to have a few over-goal days here and there wipe out most of a week's calorie deficit, depending on the details. It's kind of easy to get quite a few days going very well, feel like we're working really hard, and that feeling can loom larger than the over-goal days (which probably most of us would rather forget about altogether, if we could!)

If you log every day, good bad or indifferent, you'll have some idea whether that could be happening.

P.S. "Starvation mode" in the sense of eating so little that one can't lose weight, is generally a myth. It's possible to under-eat or under-nourish, and experience subtle fatigue that means we lose weight more slowly than expected. It's also possible to see water retention from the pure stress of extreme dieting, and that can temporarily mask fat loss on the scale.

We can't operate without burning calories, any more than we can take a long car trip with no gas in the tank or juice in the batteries. Energy expended has to come from somewhere, and we spend energy just being alive and doing our daily life stuff. The energy to do that either comes from the food we're eating around that time, or from our stored fat. At a sufficiently low calorie intake level, we will lose fat.

My husband weighs al ittle more than you and we are yet again back with mfp trying to lose weight. He eats 2200 calories a day and that's for a 2 pound a week weightloss.
I think 1500 sound really low for you.

Are you exercising and eating those calories back? I'm finding that my Apple watch way over-estimates my calorie burn. When I was in serious lose mode, I ate almost none of my exercise calories. Not that I really exercised; I just walked a bit more. I didn't put those into MFP. I also weigh everything on a scale. You can do this. Gotta be consistent and have accurate data though.