losing weight too slowly

I can't see your diary. Are you eating your exercise calories? Are you eating often enough? Drinking plenty of water?

Your body is adapting to the lower calorie intake. If you are not looking to deprive yourself of any nutrition, you will just need to up the tempo of your workouts a little. maybe add an extra 15 minutes to your zumba, or increase the pace/distance of your walk. Could work your way up to a jog. My wife used something called the couch-to-5k program and went from not being able to a mile, to she can do 2 miles without stopping after only a few weeks.

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml - c25k

Hope this helps

anyone having the same issue? I just started 3 weeks ago and the first week I lost 4.2 pounds. The next week was .8 pounds. I have been drinking water, doing zumba, walking, shooting hoops, and balancing my diet with carbs, fats, and protein. I'm starting to get really discouraged and I know that any weightloss is better than none, but I have at least 80 pounds to lose and at this rate, it will be YEARS before I see that kind of loss. MFP tells me I should be consuming 1240 calories a day. I've been really good at staying within 50 calories of that. Any suggestions? I need help.

You've lost 6lbs in three weeks. Congratulations! MFP is working perfectly for you. You shouldn't be losing much more than 2lbs a week. This isn't The Biggest Loser. You aren't going to lose 40lbs a month because that's unhealthy.

What you will do is take the weight off slowly and learn to keep it off for good. That's better than any fad diet there is.

You'll be able to lose that 80lbs in less than a year. It took you a lot longer than that to put it all on. Be patient and stick with it.

I had that difficulty myself -- and I'd offer you three ideas -- one inspirational, the other three are just suggestions.

1. I'm trying to lose 22 pounds. Not nearly so hard as 80, I know, but I'm a gal who is under 5' tall, so it's a fair bit for me. I lost about 8 right away (within 3-4 weeks), and then I stayed at the same weight for about 3 months, even though I thought I was doing the same things as before, or so it seemed.

Then, suddenly, I lost another 8 in literally 2 weeks. I was so surprised that I thought my scale was broken, so I bought a new one. My new scale gives the same result, and I really do look different, and I have dropped 2 clothes sizes, so it's real. :-) I think that, actually, during the 3 months of zero progress, my body was kind of getting ready to lose the rest -- I was "saving up" some weight loss for later or something.

2. Here are three things that I do think helped me get past the rut:

A. I think I was estimating my portion sizes incorrectly before. I started using a postal scale to weigh foods every now and then, just to re-calibrate my understanding of how much 2 oz. of cheese is, etc.

B. I started to weigh myself every, first thing when I got up in the morning. I know some people say not to do that, but I found it helpful. I would record the weight, including tenths of pounds, every day in MFP. Then I looked at the progress thing every day on MFP to see the overall trend, even when it was subtle. That also helped me notice when I was slowly gaining weight before it got too bad.

C. I think I was tricking myself with exercise before. I think that for some people, the MFP estimates of calories burned through exercise might be too high. For example, it would say that I had burned 90 cal. through walking, for instance, so then I'd get an extra 90 cal in my food allotment for the day. But I don't think I was really burning as much as MFP said I was, so I was eating an extra 90 cal. when I maybe had only burned 50 cal, or something. I feel like the MFP "calories burned" estimates for exercise are maybe more accurate for taller people, or men, or something, but maybe not me.

I know how you feel. I have been at it for roughly 3 weeks so far and have only dropped 2-3 lbs. I feel some days like I am starving myself and then working out so hard and not getting any results. I am doing my best to stay focussed though and stay positive knowing that in time, I will see the results I want. It can be a struggle, but we are capable of acheiving our goals!

Ditto to what everyone else said What you're experiencing is completely normal - the TV shows are NOT normal. As for your calories, if anything you should increase that by a few hundred a day. I've never managed to lose weight effectively at 1200 calories/day, but when I lost around 50 a few years ago it was at 1400-1500/day. Right now my trainer has me on 1800/day and that's based on a lifestyle of only light to moderate activity. Her words "consistently losing even a pound a week over the long term is going to mean WORK." But that initial week of losing a few pounds is definitely a nice psychological boost.

I feel your pain! I am trying to lose baby weight and then some. I'm 5'9, and was at 216 post baby #3. (I was at 179 before baby #3 - which was a little high for me). I lost down to 185 on my own, and began MFP at the beginning of this month to help me with the rest. I'd like to get down to 160.

I've lost NOTHING so far! So disappointing b/c I have really began exercising (I wasn't before). Yet, I'm still at 185 as of this morning. boo! I am staying under 1200 calories per day - a few days I went a bit over, but it was exercise calories so I didn't feel too bad. But now, I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't eat those extra exercise calories...I'm not sure...anyway I think I'm going to do my measurements to see if possibly I'm losing inches rather than weight. I do feel better adding the exercise - but still disappointed about not losing anything else yet.

The most important thing for me to lose is keeing my macro and micronutrients in the green. I can eat 1200 calories a day and exercise til I'm blue in the face, but the scale won't budge if you're going in the red everyday. I'm not saying that's what you're doing since i haven't looked at your diary, but that's been my experience. Sodium is the worst culprit, next is carbs, get plenty of protein. Good luck!

I too am losing slowly..but this week added my sodium tab. All I can say was WOW what an eye opener! So now I am watching that as well as my cholesterol intake. The scale budged a bit this morning (not a pound but part of one) so it's helping!

I feel your pain! I am trying to lose baby weight and then some. I'm 5'9, and was at 216 post baby #3. (I was at 179 before baby #3 - which was a little high for me). I lost down to 185 on my own, and began MFP at the beginning of this month to help me with the rest. I'd like to get down to 160.

I've lost NOTHING so far! So disappointing b/c I have really began exercising (I wasn't before). Yet, I'm still at 185 as of this morning. boo! I am staying under 1200 calories per day - a few days I went a bit over, but it was exercise calories so I didn't feel too bad. But now, I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't eat those extra exercise calories...I'm not sure...anyway I think I'm going to do my measurements to see if possibly I'm losing inches rather than weight. I do feel better adding the exercise - but still disappointed about not losing anything else yet.

I haven't had a baby but also started MFP at the beginning of January. I have been under my calorie goal every day (not too far under) and my scale says I gained .3 lbs! That was such a bummer, but I can tell my clothes are fitting looser than before I started. I have been working out, 3 hours of Zumba a week! Don't know what's going on.