Extremely disappointed in myself

simple enough....if your losing inches but not the lbs..its just because your gaining muscle and losing fat. Eventually the scale will go down. But dont be dissapointed in yourself. ive been going at this almost a full year and im stuck at 20lbs weight lost. i feel so much better though knowing im doing my body some good.

your doing really well keep at it

There's support, and then there is meaningless praise. This falls into the second category. If the OP started in May and has, over six months, gained three pounds, that isn't really well and he should not keep doing things the same.

Wrong. The scale is not the end all be all of weight loss.

You apparently missed the part where the OP said he went down a shirt size and from a size 50 pants to a 46...that's a pretty big improvement!

^^ Like

We are all individuals and our sizes, shapes, genres, habits, ages, activities, metabolisms, preferences, etc are different. But yet we can learn a lot from each other. What works to one, might not work to another but never mind, then we try a new approach, as long as we just continue!

If we have noticed that we most likely need to change something in the way we do this "weight management project" or lifestyle change just reading through some of these posts gives needed new ideas and perspectives. I am sure everyone here sincerely wants to help each other since we know this is not an easy task and we all also know that this is the best thing ever we can do to ourselves and the loved ones.

Not many of us has an official degrees in these subjects but since it is close to our hearts we have a lot of experience and have read tons of articles, posts and books about weight management. We still might live by some old myths so it is great to hear about new research and experiences that support them and try adjust.

It is great that you have been so active with your exercises and most likely you have got rid of pounds of fat and got muscles in change. And as so many has said before, 1 pound of muscle takes smaller space inside your skin as 1 pound of fat and that has helped you get to smaller size clothes. Good news is that when you have more muscles, your metabolism gets better so you are able to burn calories faster - this will be very very beneficial in long run. Also getting muscles shapes your body to more attractive direction. I don't know about you but for me what I see in mirror affects to my mood and motivation.

In some other post chain there was this idea of that success in weight management comes 20% from efforts in exercise and 80% from efforts in diet. I understood it so that though exercise is very important and supports our goals and maintaining them in future, the most important thing is to make permanent changes to our diet. The old one didn't keep us in the shape we wanted to have. As much we loved those foods they backfired us somehow; maybe they were not healthy and lack of right nutrients made us eat more and more or maybe they tasted TOO good (chocolate for me!) and it was too easy to eat way too much and often of them. So making changes is eventually a must.

Mathematically it is already a good change keep on eating same stuff than before but just smaller portions. If you keep on staying in your MFP limits, you will see a difference in scale numbers. But MFP is just an aid, YOU are the one who has to give it correct information so it can help you.

The better you estimate the amount of food you eat, the more accurate information MFP can give. To log your food right you might want to learn to recognize the basic sizes; cups, ounces, 50 grams,... how they look; your palm size, size of your fist, size of an apple, ... It really is good practice to measure them at least couple of weeks at home. You will learn to estimate it right quite fast and it is also good to do a check up after couple of months since the eye starts easily see amounts smaller than they actually are (been there, done that!).

Be also careful about exercise times and intensive. It's not a vigorous work out if you take long breaks or don't get sweatty, It isn't 1 hour workout (but maybe 45 mins) if you go to gym on 2 pm and leave home 3 pm and had a shower and some chats there before starting/leaving ... ;-) Try to change your exercise routines at least once a month or your body doesn't respond as well as in the begining. If your exercise is heavy type, you better eat most of your exercise calories too! It might sound controversial but many people have noticed it helps them improve their performance and strengthen their muscles since they need energy to build up.

Try new kind of sports and exercises to keep up your progress! If your exercise is always the same type, that might slower the progress; body has got too used to it and doesn't need so much effort to go through. You still might put same amount of exercise calories on your log than before but actually you use much less than in beginning. New stuff keeps your mind alert too.

The more healthy food filled with vitamins, minerals and proteins you eat, the better you feel! For me it immediately makes it more difficult to stay within my calories if I'm not eating healthy. When calories are limited, best you can do yourself is make sure that every calory comes with GOOD side effects that support your project. Ok, sure you have to pamper yourself sometimes but not too much and not too often. And when you do, log in every little bit to MFP so it stays in control.

Remember to check your goals and progress in settings time to time (once a month?) or MFP keeps giving you same calories all the time though they should be adjusted to "new you". I didn't realize this until saw it in some post and when I went to do it, had to use less calories after... :-/

Hope some of those ideas help you too, they sure have helped me. Best of luck and keep on doing what works for you and slowly slowly change the things that you know don't work so well! This is a learning journey and we'll get our degrees when we reach our goals healthy and happy and MAINTAIN them! :-)