getting teary eyed... 30 days in and now gaining.

No matter the underlying issue, you would benefit from doubling your protein.

Looking at your food diary, I would suggest either eliminating or cutting your alcohol intake and increase your vegetables. You also need to increase your protein and decrease your sodium. A lot of restaurant foods are very high in sodium.

First you said that you have been here since mid Sept. and you have lost 15 pounds??????? That is alot for a little time, and that might be the problem.

Watch your salt intake.

What is your goal on MFP? 1 pound a week?
Maybe try and add somre more exercise to the week, also, make sure that you are eating all your calories.....do not go under, sounds like to me your body is going into starvation, looking at your diary, does not appear you are eating all your calories, and when you exercise, eat back at least 1/2 of the calories that you burn off. You might need to play around with that -- I eat almost all my calories back that I work off !! YOUR BODY NEEDS THE FUEL, or else you will go into starvation mode and store fat.

I know that it is frustrating, but hang in there -- do not give up !!
Feel free to add me.......:flowerforyou:


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I agree with jennw10 - I'm not a nutritionist, and although you're not eating way too many refined carbs, it definitely won't hurt to get in a lot more protein and even some more "good" fats. And don't forget to eat a good breakfast.

And engineman312 is right too - don't give up!!!

Good luck

Okay - I feel like I have been saying this a lot lately but here goes (fyi - I'm certainly no expert) . . .

Change your food diary to show sugar and sodium. It looks like some of the things you eat could be high in sodium. I heard that you should consume more than 2,200 mg of sodium per day but I also recently heard that the new recommendation is 1,500 mg. I can't lose weight if I go high in sodium - it consumes me.

Also, eat more. I know - I still have a hard time with this concept BUT on most days you are not eating your recommended calories - you are under. My incredibly healthy, fit sister-in-law, who weighs 112 lbs, recommends that you never consume less than 1,800 calories per day. Now, those have to be healthy calories. She says for bread - never pick anything that contains less than 4g of fiber and go whole wheat. Fruit is great - but not too much because of the sugars. Green veggies - make them your best friend!

I don't do great all the time but I did take her recommendation of trying to increase my calorie intake and I did continue to lose weight. For me - so far, so good.

Oh, and I exercise a minimum of 6 days per week for at least 40 minutes. I alternate between running and recumbent bike.

Good luck to you!

I see that there's a bit of alcohol intake. Try cutting back on that and put the extra calories to food..more specifically protein

As frustrating and disapointing as it is - it is just one week. For me weight loss is very uneven, even when my eating and exercise are consitent. You may be experiencing something similar. Some ideas to try:

You may be taking in high levels of sodium from prepared foods. Add this to your elements to track, reduce it and see if it helps you shed water.

It is very easy to overestimate exercise calories. Consider "eating back" 50% only.

I see that you are already low in carbs. Try shocking your system a bit with one day of all lean protein/super low carbs. This has helped me in your situation.

Good luck and keep us posted!

you are right to not throw in the towel. we can not predict what our body does, or what will cause it to gain a pound or three. your weight will fluctuate, it just does. you need to do a lot of self analyzing, and see what you can change. maybe a new and different workout, and some new foods and eating habits.

Remember, any time you switch up your workout you're going to see an initial increase. That being said, he's right, your weight will fluctuate. You've lost 15 pounds in a month, that's extremely aggressive, and generally not a sustainable rate of loss. So your body could just be saying "woah, this is our new life so it's time to regulate." Ride it out for more than a week to know for sure (one week doesn't make a pattern, just a frustration). Also, I'd agree with taking a look at your food intake. What are your percentages? mfp defaults to a fairly low protein level, imho, I've reset mine to 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat . . . but I have no science behind that it's just what I arbitrarily decided upon mostly so that I could continue to accomodate my fruit. Play with your numbers, lose the high sodium foods as they aren't doing you any favors, and just keep plugging on.

Think about it logically. To put on a pound of fat, you have to overeat by roughly 3500 calories. You are attempting to lose 2lbs a week (if your calorie limit of 1200 is right), which means your goal already puts you at a deficit of 7000 a week. This means that to put on 3lb of fat you would have to overeat your calorie goal by a whopping 31500 calories.

Have you done that? If not, then you simply cannot have put on 3lb of fat, which means it can only be water. Water is retained for a number of reasons (including TOM as you mention) so if you have recently started any muscle building this could be a factor, but looking at your diet, your problem is sodium. Your sodium is over most days, and some days where it's not over were ones where you 'quick-added' calories so there is no sodium listed. This will be what is causing you to retain water.

Don't panic, reduce the amount of salt, and you'll begin to see it drop again.

1) Do you own a food scale and do you use it, or do you estimate calories?
2) What are all the quick-add calorie items, or what is the reason for using this feature?

Sheltie,
Hang in there, the goal is not to give up, this happens to all of us at some point or another. Sometimes sooner than others. There are a few bits of advice that I can offer however that might help you.

1) Change your workout routine. Everyone has the same problem, our body are designed to adapt and overcome adversity. If you have been putting all of your effort into your workout and you do the same or similar exercises everyday your body will identify what you are doing and it will find a way to work around it. I try to change my exercises up as often as I can. For example, if you are using walking as your exercise, instead of walking for 30 minutes try increasing the speed (even if slowly) for part of the time. Every 10 minutes you walk try to jog for 2 - 3 of those minutes. If you work out at the gym you can try my personal favorite, the elliptical. A lot of people tell me they "hate" the elliptical, but I have learned to call it my friend because of how many variables it offers and because I can use it to push myself. Try a different programmed pattern every day. To get around my issues, I did Manual settings on Monday (30 minutes of Level 17.. try it lower than that to start with, I started at level 8 and worked my way up to 17 over a course of 3 months, keeping my heart rate at 165 - 170 the entire time) Tuesday I did the Hill setting (again 30 minutes and do what you can to keep your heart rate up at about 165 , but don't try to go much above 170) Wednesday "Personal Trainer Mode" It makes you change directions and tells you to use your arms to push or pull or just use your legs. Thursday, back to manual mode, Friday "Around the world" Various hill settings. Saturday & Sunday rest. (5 days a week isn't for everyone, but it has helped me tremendously... find what works for you and go with that). No matter what kind of exercise you do, by the end of 30 minutes you should have broken enough of a sweat that it looks like you took a quick sprint outside in a downpour and back again.

2) Change your tracking info on your diary. I see that you use the default settings. Try going to Setting > Diary Info and changing what you are tracking. For me I changed mine to reflect Calories / Carbs / Protein / Sugar / Sodium. This helps because While everything looked great for a while as soon as I added "Sugar" to mine, I realized that there were days when I was going way overboard on sugars even though everything else looked good.

3) Take a multi-vitamin. It sounds like a strange suggestion, but sometimes your body resists change because it is not getting enough of one kind of vitamin, it will resist you in an effort to protect itself if its not getting something that it needs. Adding vitamins to your diet will increase the odds that your body will burn off everything that you put in and expunge everything that is excess. If you give it more nutritional suppliments than it needs it won't hang on to things that it doesn't need.

4) Sleep. The hardest thing to acquire is enough sleep. Once you change your workout routine, set yourself some goals. The first kinds of goals that I find make things better are "pleasure goals" I don't know anyone that doesn't like getting extra rest. So make a plan, chart everything out so that you can accomplish the things that you need to get done, and set yourself a goal even if its only 1 night a week to start to get a full 8 - 9 hours of sleep. While this is difficult (I know I have a 3 year old that wakes up at 5:30am everyday) you can make this happen by planning it out ahead of time. No matter what find one day that you can tell yourself "I'll be in bed by 9pm and awake by 7am". Its hard to do, but if you can get at least one day of rest your body will recover better.

5) Keep in touch with MFP friends. We all have our own experiences and we are all in the same boat here. Having a strong support group to keep things going is the best motivator and help you will find. Just like you did when you posted this topic, ask for help. Ask for suggestions. Those of us that have been where you are will not hesitate to offer whatever support we can to make your journey a successful one.

Good luck, keep up the hard work. You can do this!

-Ryan

Try decreasing your sodium intake...that can make you gain weight.

Others have said it..... cut out the alcohol and processed foods, and reduce the sodium intake (restaurant food has a lot). Eat more fruits and veggies. It's not enough to just consume within your calorie goal, but... you need to make healthy choices.