why do my scales never change??

How long have you been calorie restricting? How big is your calorie deficit? How long has your plateau been?

It's normal for our metabolisms to change a little as we diet. The longer we diet, the more we restrict calorie intake, the more weight we lose, the more creative we've got to be to keep taking the weight off.

But have faith You'll break the plateau eventually. If you're running a calorie deficit and if you're exercising, the scale will start moving again eventually. You might try changing things up a bit- different types of exercise, different foods, that sorta thing.

And yes, record your measurements. That helps.

You are likely converting fat to muscle, so you won't see a scale difference. Try measuring your body (chest, belly button, waist, hips) each week. You should see a difference there, which IMHO is better

I agree.. Measure!!!! I dont like the scale at times because I will bust my butt for it to not even budge, then my husband had me start measuring and I saw a HUGE difference.. I ususally measure every Sunday. and about every other sunday my measurements get smaller! sometimes its just a little and others it a good inch or more! Hang in there your doing great!

This is great advice. Start measuring your fat % as well. I bought a weight watchers scale from bed bath and beyond about two weeks ago. Let me tell you my fat percentage changed even though the scale hasn't moved. It makes a huge difference.

If you are eating at a deficit, it is probably water retention, imo. Working out (especially if you are using weights) can cause your muscles to retain water while they heal up.

Muscle building is actually very difficult to do and takes a lot of dedicated weight lifting over a long period of time. Most men are lucky to put on one pound of muscle a month. (according to my husband who knows way too much about this stuff)

All I can suggest is drink more water and log/count your calories accurately.

Also, what rebekah529 says

Covert Bailey, a respected fitness expert, claims that one can expect to healthily and reasonably gain one pound of muscle a week. That is clearly with exercising whose focus is building muscle bulk; however, it then seems reasonable that one could reasonably seek to gain a couple pounds of muscle within a month through regular exercise. This combined with water retention (which can be caused by many things including sodium intake) seems like a logical explanation. Hence, I agree with everyone else. Measure yourself! Or, if you don't want to put that much effort into it, measure by how your clothes fit!

Best wishes!