What am I doing wrong?

how many calories are u supposed to eat? I found that you have to put your activity level in your profile ate sedentary and make sure you "eat" your excersize calories. If you are too far under your daily calorie intake, your body will hold onto the fat because it thinks you are starving and it will make it harder for you to lose. And are you losing any inches at least? Muscle weighs more than fat, so you may be losing inches and not weight. I'd suggest ditching the scale for a month and concentrate on a measuring tape....its a better indicator of your progress. Hope this helps!
P.S. Don't ever give up. Remember that the lifestyle change is more important that how quickly you can lose weight. If you give up, you're sure not to lose anything. I'm kind of in the same boat as you, I started a month ago and only lost 7 pounds so far because somehow, I gained 3 pounds last week and I'm not sure why. But I stay positive and know that I can't give up and the weight will come off if I just keep at it.

my first thought is that you're not eating enough which causes your body to go into starvation mode and works against you. Definitely don't give up, sometimes it takes a while but make a few adjustments and see if something changes. Don't eat less than 1200 cal a day. Work out in the mornings if you can - helps you burn calories longer thru the day. Drink 1/2 your body weight in water. Cut the salt, alcohol & refined sugars. No starchy carbs after 1 or 2pm each day helps and not eating after 8pm helps. Get 7-8 hours of sleep and engage others in your goals, find an accountability partner to help w/ hurdles. Good luck.

Nothing is wrong..if you have lost 20lbs in 3 months you are right on target...an excellent slow weight loss that should stay off. Just keep to the programme of eat less..move more and let your weight take care of itself..patience...it took you a while to gain weight...it takes time to lose it.

you;ve lost 20lb in twelve weeks - I hope I am as successful as that - its a really good average per week just over 1.5lb

I think you are doing fantastically well

If this is the case, then you are right on track! I've been doing this for months and just now hit 20 pounds (only 12 since I started this site).

Excellent advice ! Most of the people using MFP are trying to lose weight but that is a byproduct of healthy eating and lifestyle change. Don't lose heart , the weight will go and I bet you feel better with the better diet and exercise. Keep your goals in front of you and don't even think of quitting. You'll get there !

As a general rule, change is hard and takes time. Frankly, it sounds like you are trying to control too many things at once that you didn't do before. What could be the culprit? Lots of things. My best advice to you is to set reasonable behavioral goals and phase them in to develop the habits that you need to be successful. Here's how I got started.

April - May: My focus was on controlling total calories. I didn't worry about macros (fat/protein/carbs) because hitting caloric targets is hard, but hitting them with specific macros is harder. Get calories under control first.

May - June: Exercise. My full exercise focus in the first month? Wii tennis. No real workouts until the end of May. Exercising is extremely beneficial to increasing metabolism, but it isn't necessary to lose weight. Get diet under control before worrying about exercise too much. (Do it, but don't obsess over 6 day a week workouts at first.)

June - July: Sodium. I'm hypertensive and want to be off BP meds. Once I was in a good diet/exercise rhythm I focused on really lowering sodium.

August - Present: Macros and fitness. With my basics under control I've been focusing in recent months on hitting macro targets and improving my over-all fitness. I would NOT have been successful at the beginning if I had tried to do all these things at one time.

A few general bits of advice.
(1) Set a realistic calorie goal based on your weight. Do not anticipate more than 1 lb. of loss a week. I've lost an average of 1.8 lbs. per week...but my goal has never been set higher than 1 lb. That way I take in enough calories to fuel my metabolism.
(2) Log EVERYTHING and measure EVERYTHING. Get measuring spoons, a kitchen scale, etc. and be obsessive. Make sure you know what you're really consuming.
(3) Make sure to do some kind of strength/resistance training as well as cardio and don't over-do it. If you are starving yourself and working out excessively, you do run the risk of slowing metabolism (which greatly slows -- not halts -- weight loss) and injuring yourself. We are not different in this respect, no matter what many here in MFPland say. Too few calories with too much exercise is a universal recipe for risk in the human body.
(4) Avoid radical diets if you aren't under a doctor's supervision. Extremely low calorie diets, diets low in fat, diets low in carbs can work when used properly...and that means with medical advice only. My current macro targets are 45% carbs / 30% protein / 25% fat. These numbers are derived from non-specialized diet medical recommendations, and I've lost 55 lbs. in 7 months. Start with these (or similar) numbers and then tweak them if necessary...but don't slash away from any without medical input.
(5) Make sure your starting calories are right for your BMR. Websites like http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php can be used (along with MFP) to calculate your BMR or RMR, estimate your activity level, and determine the calories you need to function AND an appropriate deficit. There are many such resources on the web; shop around. I recommend this one because it does a lot of the calculating for you.
(6) If you are convinced that you are really doing everything right and you still don't see results, see a doctor. There are many medical conditions that affect metabolism and therefore weight loss. People with conditions like hypothyroidism cannot lose weight by following the same process as people without those conditions...but these things need to be medically diagnosed and not self-identified.

Finally, take all the advice here (including mine) with a grain of salt. But don't give up on yourself. This game we play of improving our health is only lost if we give up. This is not easy for anyone...if they say it is they are lying to themselves as much as to you. It is HARD. But the outcome is worth it as long as you keep at it. Best of luck to you, and I sincerely hope you keep your motivation. :flowerforyou:

I'm going to tell you what I tell myself on days when I'm frustrated with the stall in progress: You've lost 20 lbs! Good job!