I am so lost. I seriously need some help here!

I'm going to suggest you do an MFP search for Plateau and see what others have done to overcome the plateau. One thing I have read is cycling your calories or zig-zagging up and down day to day, still keeping to the weekly goal total. Helps confuse the body and get your weight loss back on track.

I totally agree with you, I do a lot of cardio and burn well over 1300 calories a day. I was eating what MFP calculated for me which was 1260 some days 1400. It was not working for me the weight loss was horrible. For at least a month I was losing ounces to no weight loss. So I did what you said I still workout and burn a lot of calories but I zigzag my calories everyday. I did research for my bmr, then I add exercises plus I research many places on how many calories I needed to maintain my current weight. That was my homework first, then I started counting calories from that. I gave myself 1600 a day but i can eat 1700 to 1900 a day. I never eat the same amount of calories a day. I also have a high calorie day wherein if I don't eat up to that amount I eat them on a high fat day but I don't go over my allowed fat if possible. I foundly start losing weight better. You have to play with your calories and no matter what If you burn a lot of calories eating low calories is not going to work. I also agree invest in a hrm or something to calculate your calorie burn bcuz MFP is over calculating calories burn. I wear a bodybugg and believe me it is no where close to MFP nor the exercise machine.

One more thing... eliminate all sodas out of your diet even if it is diet. I have read somewhere that even though diet soda's have zero calories, they can still somehow cause you to gain weight and not lose.

This was a personal choice, but when I was actively losing I didn't eat back any of my exercise calories. I started at 246 pounds so there phyically was no reason to eat them back. I had good results with working out 6x a week (cardio) for a LEAST 30 mins a day, uusally longer. I lost 90 pounds in 6 months and then 6 more afterwards, I've been maintaing around 150ish since Aug.

Good luck to you, and hope you can tweak it so something works out!

I don't know if anyone mentioned this but have you taken your measurements? I did circuit training for 3 months. Didn't lose much weight but lost a lot of inches. Dropped at least one clothing size. How do your clothes fit you?

set the calories a little lower than reccomended. mine should be at 2000 but i've set it to 1600 to start.

o_O This is not "a little lower." This is a LOT lower. Just fyi, especially if you're not logging and re-eating exercising calories, you are increasing the (already calculated) deficit by another 20%. That's substantial.

No way should you eat that many calories. No wonder you are having a hard time. I could not loose weight with the program the way it is set up so I eat 800 calories most days if I don't exercise and 1200 to 1500 on the days I exercise. NO MORE THAN THAT. I feel great, I am loosing about 1 to 2 pounds a week and many days I don't have time to exercise so I don't worry about it. I promise you, if you do this, you will loose weight. It doesn't matter what you eat or what time you eat or any of that garbage. Just eat no more than 1500 calories a day and you will loose pounds, guaranteed!!!

Please stop talking. She's 260 right now. 1500 calories is painfully low for her. Potentially dangerously so. Make your own bad decisions if you want, but don't encourage other people just getting started to make the same mistakes.

There's no reason to cut all the fructose sugars out of your diet. And honestly, I highly advise against trying to follow some fad "diet plan." Obviously you're trying a big dietary paradigm shift; going from eating in a very unhealthy fashion to a very healthy fashion.

Try some bagged mixtures of frozen veggies. You can throw a whole bag in a tupperware container frozen and microwave steam it in just a few minutes.

Keep a lot of boneless skinless chicken breasts on hand. Chop them up and put them over a salad with cheese and tomato and cucumber and spinach.

Mix tuna or chicken with plain greek yogurt to make tuna/chicken salad.

Mix vanilla or chocolate protein powders into plain greek yogurt to a pudding-like consistency, and even mix in some nuts and/or berries for extra texture/flavor. It's delicious.

My diary is open and I think for the most part pretty healthy. Feel free to ransack it for ideas.

Check with your psychiatrist about your depression meds. I am now on Pristique and my weight is coming off. I found that Lexapro wasn't the drug for me. PLus, my thyroid is of question, too. You can have a good thyroid day and then three days later, it goes goofy! That's one of the wacky things about thyroids. It sounds like your metabolism is off, too. Try not to eat too little, or your metabolism will slow way down.

I agree with the milk. It fills you up and helps to build strong bones,

You should lower your carbs - you're regularly more than 100grams over your recommended intake. Lower carbs, especially the starchy kind, and up your fat.
Also I don't think you need to eat 2300 cals as you mentioned was recommended. It sounds too high.

Not sure what country you're in but you can get a product called Mountain Bread in Australia. It's awesome. Its essentially a wrap but it's sooo yummy.

I would go to your doctor and get a full check up. Unless you are way over estimating cals burned and under estimating cals eaten, from what you've given us you should be losing.

Regarding cal sizes I started at 1800. Far too much for me (and Jenny Craig told me to eat 2000!) so I went to 1600 and lost a lot. Went to 1400 when the site told me to but was struggling, so I've gone back to 1600. That's the best for me and I'm only slightly smaller than you (around 250lbs)

Regarding your exercise I think you're doing too much. If you're doing six days a week of weights circuit training you are doing it far too much. Every second day is the recommendation. You're not giving your body a chance to recover and repair itself.

I might have missed it but what are you drinking?

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. I mean, I was taught that I should burn more than I take cause I have so many excess calories of fat that I need to burn. I don't know what to do. =( I simply can't eat more even for my size. It's too hard to eat so much. i am so obsessed with food that sometimes I just don't even want to eat. =( i was told that with all of my exercise I should eat about 2300 calories a day. I still don't understand this calorie crap and its driving my crazy. I put in a lot of effort at the gym. this is just too much. can it be that I am just meant to be this size? What else can I do? Should I just change my goals to maintain my level and just exercise and log that in? Someone help me, this is really breaking me.

Without reading through the other comments, my observation is that you are choosing very healthy meals so I commend you for that! You are already doing your body good!!! The only thing I can see by your food diary is that you go over your carbs quite a bit. A suggestion would be to add Sodium and Sugar to your food diary by going to your Diary Settings and adding those to your Nutrients Tracked. This will give you a better view on how well you are staying within the most critical macros.

From my own personal journey, my weight hardly dropped when I was eating high-carb, low-fat meals. When I switched that around, my weight started moving downward again without changing my caloric intake. I try to keep my sodium under 1,800mg daily because any higher and I feel bloated. My sugar is almost always over but it's mostly from fruit so I don't worry about it too much... but still try to keep it in check.

The two things I've learned from my journey is that if the weight isn't budging, it is due to two things:

1) I need to change my exercise routine because my body isn't burning calories as efficiently as it was in the beginning.
2) Look for answers in the food I'm eating to see if better choices can be made.

Everyone has their own theory on exercise calories and everyone sees different results. Bottom line is that the body needs change to continue to be challenged. Good luck to you and never give up!

I also noticed you don't log on the weekends - for example this week you haven't logged since Thursday - how are you eating on these days?
Oh and starbucks has no business calling that smoothie a protein smoothie.. false advertising when it comes with 48g of carbs.
Good luck, I think you've gotten a lot of good suggestions.

I would def recommend cutting out weights every day. You can do cardio every day but not weights. (I think they recommend one full day off a week) Def get the full body check up. Ask about PCOS (and your endo can help with that) but if your periods are regular I doubt it. Full blood work won't hurt.

Try the low carb, or even low GI. It won't hurt you to try it. There are plenty of resources.

Please don't give up. You will lose weight. I promise. It's better to be 260 until you figure out what will work for you then to give up and put on more weight.