Why do you think i'm not shifting??

Hard to tell as your diary is not Visible!

I misread this at first for "shi**ing"!!

I once heard from an instructor at a gym that a matchbox full of muscle weighs more than a butter tub full of fat... so looking at it that way could it be possible that you training so hard at the gym has made you gain more muscle so it looks like your not shifting weight? How are your measurments? How are your clothes fitting? Your best going off that rather than weight if your training hard!

me too it's so frustrating because I am watching what I eat (I'm even giving porridge a go again!), am getting the exercise in by both teaching karate and doing it myself from bout 7.30 til bout 10 and yet I havnt seen any results yet! :grumble:

any one know if I would be better tryinh to lower my fat and sugar intake? maybe that would help??

me too it's so frustrating because I am watching what I eat (I'm even giving porridge a go again!), am getting the exercise in by both teaching karate and doing it myself from bout 7.30 til bout 10 and yet I havnt seen any results yet! :grumble:

any one know if I would be better tryinh to lower my fat and sugar intake? maybe that would help??

You're under your net calories too often Sookie. You're flirting with starvation mode, which will cause you to retain weight. You don't seem to log what you drink every day, but on the days you do it seems to be OK, but I only say 'seems' as if it's caffeinated tea that's a diuretic, which will shed itself nearly as fast as you take it in. So:

- You need to eat back your exercise calories every day
- You need to drink your 8 a day, but make sure they're not caffeinated

HTH R

Just had a really quick look... do you thinking maybe upping your cals would help ?

I found that calorie cycling helps get through the plateau. Meaning days I don't workout I eat less and days I workout hard core I eat more. Rest days I eat 1200 or less, workout days I eat 1600-1800.

ALso, look at you diet really honestly . Are you eating clean? Nothing out of a box.

That's the thing...i train but i don't seem to hit my calorie goal. I have basically cut out carbs like bread, pasta and potatoes during the week and i suppose this decreases the calorie intake.

I've done the same thing but you can easily fill it with things like eggs, nuts, dairy, avocado, olive oil and peanut butter

Only looked at this week, but I'd say under-eating.

MFP already builds in a deficit for you, so you should be reaching your 1200 goal every day. It looks like you are regularly 500 calories under.

I'm not a professional, so this is just my opinion. I have lost 20 lbs (9 kg) in the 3 1/2 months that I've been on MFP. I eat 1200-1500 calories, including more if I have a big workout.

Good Luck~

This is all great advice!

Just a few questions linking back to this:

1) When you say out of a box what do you exactly mean?
2) What sort of things can i include to help up my daily intake? I'm not sure whether to do this through carbs/protein or a combo?
3) I see what you mean about the allowances...i haven't set them but i do try and keep under the carb one there and over the protein one. I will look at the settings now and adjust. Is 0.5 lb a more realistic goal?

I'll help answer the questions...

1) this basically means not processed food - cook as much of your your food from scratch, not pre-prepared
2) protein, good fats (olive oil, nuts, etc.) will help - and adding back a small amount of carbs.... for example, a 75g portion of wholewheat pasta or spaghetti isn't a bad thing - it's only 200-240 calories
3) 0.5 lb per week loss is the only goal for you.... since you only have a small amount to lose... read the 'MFP basics' link in my signature, which explains why.....

How do you change the percentages? I've always tried to eat more protein and less carbs, it would really help if when I log on to MFP it was on the same wavelength

Edit to say - no worries, I found it. Doesn't make it easy for you tho!

Ok, well it's obvious you are severely under eating. The only thing you are doing by exercising a lot and eating at 800 calories is burning muscle. For your friends that say you are over training, well that may or may not be true but I train 6 days a week and have for six months without issue. The biggest thing I would do is increase your calories (possibly a lot). But without information like height, weight, and hopefully body fat it's hard to tell what your Basal Metabolic Rate (BRM) and Total Daily Energy Expended (TDEE)is to form a proper deficit. BMR is the amount of calories you'd burn if you slept for 24 hours straight; essentially, it's the calories your body uses for bodily function. Your TDEE is a multiplying factor that incorporates lifestyle and exercise to understand your maintenance calories. With that you can form a deficit.

For example a 125 person @ 25% body fat has a BMR of 1288.5. If this person works out 5 times a week and has a sedentary job (desk job) they have a TDEE factor of 1.55. So 1288.5 x 1.55 = 1997.5 . If this person has 20 lbs or less of weight to lose, you subtract 250 calories from the TDEE to equal 1747.2; this number is your caloric needs to lose .5 lbs a week. This is the Katch McArdle formula. Using this, you eat 1747 calories a day but you don't need to log or eat back your exercise calories as it's figured into the TDEE factor.

If you can provide some basic data, I can help figure out abuot what your body needs. Unfortunately,it is a process (over months) to truely figure out your needs based on your metabolism to figure out the real number. These formulas get you close. For example, I have used this to go from 18% body fat to 11% now. I eat 2600- 2800 calories a day and I still lose. Hope this helps

Lemon

Just so long as you factor it into your calorie intake (and don't do it too often) you can have a treat whenever you like! Say you woke up this morning and just could not resist that Snickers bar (I totally understand!) then log it, and recalculate the rest of your day's calories accordingly. Don't pile on the guilt for having a sweet treat when you hadn't planned to, just take it in your calorie-stride )