Discouraged! 1 month of counting cals/working out w/ no resu

Are you saying your eating 1200 calories per day and working out like crazy? is that 1200 calories net?

Thank you for posting this - I was trying to summons up the courage to start my own thread.

I am SO discouraged. I have been under 1200 cal (sometimes far under) for 25 days and since starting exercising about 10 days ago (for the first time in over 20 years) my weight loss has stopped. In fact I've even put ON 500g/1lb.

I know what everyone's going to say: 'It's your body getting used to exercising" "It's water weight - drink more" "You're not eating enough" & the token "Muscle weighs more than fat" but all I want is the bloody scale to move DOWN not up!

I realise I just need to keep going, but man psychologically this is torture. My head starts playing games & I want to eat even less (although I'm trying to eat more - I did well yesterday) as I have always been a believer of 'Calories In v Calories Out'. But I'm proving that theory wrong, even though scientifically it doesn't seem possible. Common sense tells me it's impossible to gain weight eating so few calories, yet here I am.

I log EVERYTHING with complete accuracy - I have no intention of cheating. What's the point? It'd only be fooling myself.
I know I don't drink enough water, I'm working on that.
I do not eat my exercise calories - it seems to defeat the purpose.

The lack of weight loss is doing my head in - never before have I put in this much effort (ie exercising), but I have dieted/starved my way to double the weight I was two decades ago.
I am a walking/talking example of diets NOT working - I have been starving since 1988. I am *finally* trying to do it 'right' by exercising as well and the results aren't there.
It's very disheartening and yes, it is tempting to give in. I won't, but it's tempting.

i would maybe suggest calorie cycling... or playing with the macros a little.

Thanks for sharing your story! It is super discouraging! I just don't physically understand how it's possible for my scale to have not gone down at all. It would be one thing if my clothes were baggy or fitting differently because then I'd know I'm losing inches (I should be measuring myself, I know), but they are not. I drink a lot of water!!! I just don't get it. The scale logically has to budge soon, right?!

I hope so, for both our sakes!
It defies logic doesn't it, and I know people read/hear our stories and think we must be lying or eating more than we say (or moving less), but that's NOT the case. There are no 'hidden' calories, no cheating, no lying. In fact if anything I OVER estimate the weight/size of food portions, and UNDER estimate the exercise amounts as I'd rather be 110% sure.
I believe some of us are resistant to 'normal' dietary methods and even when we do lose it is at a far slower rate than others (who seem to drop a pound just getting the mail out of the letterbox each day).
It is totally unfair, but it's our reality. I hope one of us has a break-through soon and is able to share ideas & 'secrets' to help others in the same situation.
My aim, for the next few days, is to eat as close to 1200 as I can & see if that makes a difference. Fingers crossed.

I've read a couple of threads similar to yours and alot of them say to increase your calorie intake if you aren't losing after a few weeks. It sounds strange to me too but I'd say give it a shot. And maybe change up your excercise routine a little because I heard doing the same stuff in the same order tends to hinder alot of people too. Good luck!

Have you been monitoring your body fat? In the summer, when I started doing this seriously, I lost about a stone, stone and a half maybe, and then everything COMPLETELY STOPPED for a month or two. I was eating meticulously and exercising 5 or 6 times a week and was feeling so disheartened.

I tried the machine at the gym (incase my scales were broken, wishful thinking!!) which also measured body fat percentage and I was shocked to see it had gone down by 4% since the previous month. It was still pretty annoying, as I wanted to look or feel different, but it made me realise that all my working out wasn't doing nothing.

I got stuck at the same weight for so long that I did eventually get sick of eating super healthily and exercising all the time and seeing no results. I fell off the bandwagon for a few weeks - I went on holiday, then we came home and had a couple of takeaways, wasn't going to the gym etc, and I thought it would have ruined everything. It didn't - I didn't even gain any weight!! And as soon as I started exercising again, it started to come off again, making it easy to switch back to "dieting".

I know people say "mix up your calories", but I never really believed it that much. Or "mixing it up" was having a few extra hundred one day, for me. But actually, those few weeks obviously really confused my body. So now whenever I plateau, I take a week or two off from the gym and don't shy away from eating what I fancy.

Do you eyeball your serving sizes or do you measure? It can really trip you up if you are not accurately measuring your portions. Have you used the BMR calculator on here under tools? You might want to check it out and see if you are eating below your BMR (the amount of cals it takes for basic body functions), because you really don't want to go below that.
Also, I just wanted to encourage you. When I started, it took me six weeks to get a loss and I was doing everything right. I have it set for a pound a week and when I calculate if out, I have lost almost exactly that over time. I have gone 2-3 weeks without losing anything and then I will lose 2-3 pounds in one week. All that to say that at the end of the day, you may not be doing anything wrong. It sucks and those first six weeks were depressing, but the work did begin to pay off.

calorie cycling is gradually increasing your cals throughout a week, but sporadically so it keeps your body guessing.

it can often jump start weight loss, if you google calorie cycling there is loads of info x

For some reason, I always found that when I exercised I lost weight really slowly or not at all. I don't understand the logic behind it, but for me, when I stop exercising I lose weight again. So as awful as it sounds, I don't exercise while I am cutting calories. I usually only have between 10-20 pounds to lose anyways.. so then I start exercising when I am on maintenance and it keeps the weight off. It is only when I stop exercising again that the weight creeps back on.. then I start the entire process again lol

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Eat more. Up it by 200 calories a day. Most you can gain is under half a pound with that much increase, and it may well be all you need to set everything in motion.

Watch sodium and fat intake as well, not just calories as that can affect weight loss/gain

Do you do the same workouts everyday? Maybe your body has adapted to the workout. I would try to mix up your workout routine and see if that helps.

I would suggest upping your intake by 100 calories each week for a month, and see if that gets you anywhere. 1300 for one week, then 1400, then 1500, etc. If you start experiencing more weight loss at any of those net intakes then obviously stick with it, since everyone's BMR and maintenance levels are different.

I personally didn't see my last five pounds come off until I was getting 1450 calories, which is just under maintenance for me.

DO NOT EAT the calories you work off my working out. Eat 1200 calories and that's it. I was the same way and I stopped eating what I worked off and the results were awesome!