So frustrated i'm in tears!

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  • goldfinger88
    goldfinger88 Posts: 686 Member
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    First, I suggest you break down your weight loss goal into manageable numbers. I suggest 10 pounds at a time. That's not so overwhelming and the results are the same or better.

    As for your weight loss, don't worry about how many pounds you lose. It always starts out with a lot. Usually it's all water. Then you drop a bit less and then it gets smaller. That's when you're losing fat and building muscle and that's a good thing. One pound a week is good. Two is also good. More than that is probably not too healthy.

    Don't be discouraged or frustrated. Try and make it simple. Watch your portions. Eat good food in moderate quantity. Drink plenty of water and green tea. Often if you cut out one thing from your daily food intake, you cut out anywhere from 100 to 500 calories per day.
  • neveradullmoment
    neveradullmoment Posts: 90
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    I am sorry that you are frustrated. I think that we ALL have been there when we bust our butts and track everything and see no result. Hang in there it will all work out and the weight WILL come off! DON'T GIVE UP!!! You CAN do this!!

    Feel free to add me!
  • morkiemama
    morkiemama Posts: 897 Member
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    First of all, well done on what you have lost already!!
    It's usual to lose more in the first week or two, after that you should be aiming for max 2lb week as its unhealthy to have more than 1000 cal/ day deficit. I eat more than you with only 80lbs to lose and have lost 25lbs in 3 months. My diary is open if you want a look.
    Cut out the soda you could have a nutritious meal with those calories - I used to drink huge amounts of diet coke, have totally cut out and now only drink water, milk, tea, coffee, pure juice.
    Eat back your exercise cals - as I said before you need max 1000 cal day deficit. Mfp already includes this deficit in your cal allowance.
    Start tracking sodium- too high can cause water retention. Try and make home cooked meals, try and limit eating out/fast food etc to one or two meals a week
    It's too early for you to have built much muscle but exercise can cause water retention for muscle repair especially if you have just started.
    Take measurements, sometimes the scale will stick but you will lose inches
    Set smaller goals, eg 10, 20, 30lbs, it helps to have mini goals to aim for instead of just thinking *kitten* me I've got to lose xxxlbs!
    If you want a 'cheat meal' or a treat like chocolate, don't worry just make sure it fits in your cals and eat healthy rest of the day.
    Hope this helps :-)

    This! :D
  • yannbuk
    yannbuk Posts: 1 Member
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    Hi Shalvors, Please don't get frus...this is really early days. Like you I have pounds to lose and it doesn't come of in an instant. as everyone else says you are DOING REALLY WELL you must believe that. please stop looking back at what you have lost and look to the future..what you are going to lose.

    Accept it will take time and amounts will vary. It's important that you love and value yourself for who you are and take great pride in the fact you actually made the decisionthand you have started on the journey.

    Self beliefe is the most important factor...if you get down at what's NOT happeneing you let in the gremlins of failure. If you lose half a pond one week you won !! you actually lost weight..

    Best wishes frrom the UK

    Yannbuk
  • Munchi8175
    Munchi8175 Posts: 73 Member
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    Please take into consideration that because you (and you admit this) are working out more that you ever have, you are probably putting on some muscle. That can have an effect on your weight loss because muscle weighs more than fat. Also, your weight can fluctuate up to 2 pounds in a single day, so if you aren't weighing yourself at the same time each time you weigh, that could even play a role in it.

    If your Mountain Dew is a daily thing though, I agree with the previous posts that you may want to consider either switching to diet, or if you don't like the taste, maybe make it a once a week indulgence. It is definitely more important that you get actual food in you though so you will have enough energy for your workouts, so wasting calories on empty foods like soda aren't going to help you feel full. I know it can be overwhelming to make these changes though. If it seems like too much, maybe gradually decrease the soda consumption. Maybe every other day? And then when you're okay with that, every 3 days? And so on...
  • mrsred79
    mrsred79 Posts: 79
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    There are a lot of great responses here. I'll echo a few...work on reducing your soda and processed food intakes. Whether it's going cold turkey, or slowly reducing the % of these things you eat each week, it's a step in the right direction. Whatever you think will work best for YOU that you are sure you can maintain. You could go cold turkey, but if a few weeks go by and you're going crazy, you'll end up going on a bender. That's what happens to me. But everyone is different. If cold turkey will work for you, then go for it! I personally try to focus on an 80/20 rule when I'm trying to cut down on things that aren't good for me. But in the beginning? I started out at more 50/50. I looked at how often I was eating, say, fast food. And I made it my goal to replace fast food with a healthier option at home at least 50% of the time for the next month or until it was habit. For example: If I was eating out 8 times per week, I focused on eating out only 4 times per week for a while. Then eventually I cut it back to 3 times per week, and so on. Small healthy changes are sometimes easier because it can be a bit depressing to feel like you can't ever have any of the foods/drinks you love. But as time goes on, your body adjusts to the healthier choices you are consistently making and begins to reward you in the form of more energy, less aches and pains, greater mental focus, inch loss weight loss. And coming from experience, you'll eventually enjoy the healthier options more and more and the junky fast food options less and less. No lie!

    My long winded point is...do like others here have already said..continue making the efforts to make sustainable changes and you'll see the results in one form or another. But remember, it's hard work to be healthy and it's easy to be fat. If it was the other way around, we'd all be at our goal weights! Keep at it, hun. It is so worth it in the long game!
  • MaximalLife
    MaximalLife Posts: 2,447 Member
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    Take a week off from the diet but keep up with training and working out.
    When eating at maintenance youll boost metabolism due to making the body work harder to process food.
    You should always eat at maintenance several times on your weight loss journey.
    Just simply add 20% to the 1700 calories in your diary and do it.

    Youll thank me later!
    ^^^^^
    THIS
  • fabafter5
    fabafter5 Posts: 200 Member
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    Ditch the soda! I would rather eat a piece of broiled fish, a 1/2 cup of couscous and a veggie for the calories that you waste on one soda. Not to mention the sugar!
  • MaximalLife
    MaximalLife Posts: 2,447 Member
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    OK, I'll admit I didn't read all the post in here so I don't know if this has been mentioned. But I"m going to ask a question.

    That 20oz bottle of Mountain Dew you drink everyday. Would you fill that up with water and add 19 tsps of sugar to it?

    If your answer is no then think again cuz that's what you are doing. The 1st thing I tell people to cut out of their diet is Soda and see what happens after a week.
    Again, it's the little things.
  • Nala335
    Nala335 Posts: 38 Member
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    You can do it, we can help....and then we will come over and paint your house and build a deck too :)

    Or try repeating a few things you'd expect from a loving mom or grandmother:

    You're in control - keep it up - it will be okay! - You're doing what everyone wishes in getting active - stop weighing yourself for a while - drink more water - it will be okay - small moves, just small moves will make it.....
  • tlwinky
    tlwinky Posts: 20 Member
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    Have you measured yourself? or tired to put on clothes that are normally tight? you might be surprised , I find that the numbers on the scale move incredibly slowly , but I am back to wearing pants that were super tight just a few months ago ...


    Hugs , you can do this
  • tlwinky
    tlwinky Posts: 20 Member
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    I have found this same thing to be true. I lost 2 pounds the first week, only 1 the second week, 1 the third week and NOTHING this past week! BUT I put on a shirt yesterday (one that I have not been able to wear for 2 years because it made me feel like a sausage and it was SOOO uncomfortable!) just hoping I could button it up a bit more than usual.... and it buttoned up with no problem! So then I started trying on jeans and shorts that I also have not been able to wear for two years- EVERYTHING FIT. I have never been so happy! So, I have only lost four pounds so far, but I have already lost at least four pant sizes! The scale is not always the best judge of progress.... Keep at it and you will see a change in other ways.

    Good luck!
  • JulieBoBoo
    JulieBoBoo Posts: 642
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    If you've just added weight training that is likely the culprit. When you build muscle you retain more water. This is part of the process of the muscle repairing itself and making itself stronger. This is a good thing. Building more lean muscle mass is good for many many reasons and is MUCH more important than the scale moving. Try taking measurements. You'll see a difference I'm sure.
  • Nana_Booboo
    Nana_Booboo Posts: 501 Member
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    Eat your exercise calories
    You should eat back your exercise calories.
    Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week.
    That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up.
    Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories.
    Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be?
    In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more.
    Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount
    of weight each week.

    Be efficient.

    Now, I may not ALWAYS eat all my exercise calories but I will not let my net calories go below 1200.

    I've messed this up my entire life, I've always been hungry and thought that's the feeling you needed to have to succeed

    Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.
  • mrlazy1967
    mrlazy1967 Posts: 285 Member
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    You're doing really well so don't give up - so long as the weight goes down some weeks, stays the same other weeks and doesn't go up it's all good news.
  • jeepwidow01
    jeepwidow01 Posts: 173
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    Understand the frustration! I'm right there with you! However, take your measurements and see if you are losing inches. Toning up is just as, if not more important, than the number of the scale. :wink:

    Also, instead of looking at this journey as needing to lose 150 lbs, take it in smaller increments. I'm working with 10 lb increments. Yes, I know where I want my goal weight, but it isn't as daunting for me if I just set the smaller goals.

    You can do this! Even though it is easier said than done, don't get frustrated. Just keep doing what you are doing & let your body adjust to the changes it is going through. It will catch up!

    Good luck!
  • juliedee6
    juliedee6 Posts: 46 Member
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    I, too, had been frustrated with losing NOTHING after 3 months on Weight Watchers. I worked out HARD. exhausting myself at the gym. Then I learned I was working out too hard! How can that be? You need to do cardio at your fat burning rate. Go to the Mayo Clinic website. They have a calculator there so that you can find out the heart beat range for your age to lose fat. Mine is 107 to 132 based on my age of 65. I was always working at 140 and above! So, stop killing yourself. When you are in the proper zone, you should be able to carry on a conversation. I got a heart rate monitor (one with a chest band), that tells me what my heart is beating at and how many calories I have burned. (This is handy if you do a DVD at home or walk with the family.) You will find that when you do the machines, you constantly fall out of the zone, which means your fat burn is slowed way down. If you take an aerobics class, you may find that your heart rate is too fast. The suggestion to measure yourself is good. You'll see results way before the clothes begin to feel looser. I do something that you're not supposed to do, and that is, I weigh myself everyday. I find that is motivating to me. That way, if my weigh-in day is Friday, and for most of the week my weight was headed down, if when I weigh in on Friday and don't get the results I had hoped for, I know I really did accomplish something. Remember, if you are not in menopause yet, weight can fluctuate a great deal. On exercise days, I eat back only about 200 of my calories. I think this is why I did not lose on WW. For my body, I need to keep the calorie count low. You have to find out what works for your body.
  • CallmeSbo
    CallmeSbo Posts: 611 Member
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    Throw that scale away, get a tape measure.
  • brittanyjeanxo
    brittanyjeanxo Posts: 1,831 Member
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    I can't believe I am only the second person to post this that I've seen. (The first was SUNKISSES)
    I know it sounds hard to believe, and trust me, for a while I didn't get it either, but you need to eat MORE. I went back for a week to see how you eat, and you're eating 500-700 calories under what you should be eating. Eat closer to goal. You don't want to go over every day or anything, but 500-700 calories under is simply too much. I try to stay 100 or less under.
    I know because I did the same exact thing. Then when I followed someone's advice and ate at or very close to goal, the weight started coming off again. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but it's what I would definitely suggest.
  • mctiernan
    mctiernan Posts: 51 Member
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    I just had a quick view of your diary. I have a few suggestions that may help. I would replace the mountain dew with water or tea with no sugar or milk. Maybe try to eat a little "cleaner". Cut sugar and processed food. Fill up on natual foods instead. Stay away from pop tarts, chocolate, potatoes and butter etc. If you eat clean to balance your blood sugar, you will feel much better, more energy and see a loss. There are so many great recipes out there that make clean eating really enjoyable. Good Luck.

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