anyone else out there eating right, excersising like they sh

One more thing... I see in your diary that there are several days where you've ostensibly burned 700, 900, 1000 calories from exercise. Are you *sure* you are burning that many? What activities are you doing, and on what are you basing your burn? Gym machines notoriously over-calculate burn rates, and even some of MFP's calculations overestimate. For example, it takes about a 10-mile run to burn 1000 calories -- an average turn on the elliptical trainer, etc. does not really compare.

You may not be burning as much as you think, and you may be inadvertently eating back all of the caloric deficit you would need to lose weight.

Just one more suggestion on places to look. I hope this comes off as helpful rather than critical, because it is intended as the former! We all hit plateaus and it is very frustrating, so I am just sharing some places where I have had to improve myself in the past to get past them!

TAKE UR MEASUREMENTS!!!! U will gain weight if u are gaining muscle! and a scale is never accurate! I didn't lose any weight either after 6 weeks of strenuous exercise! But I did lose 5"!!!!! Much better than losing weight I must say, and I feel alot better than I did then! Also make sure ur eating 1200 calories at the least, u'll lose weight faster!

Since weight loss comes down to calories in vs. calories out, I would focus on your estimated calorie burns during exercise. For a long time, I seemed to be breaking even because of the way I was logging exercise, meaning I wasn't burning as much as I thought I was. Compare what the machine tells you (which isn't always accurate, either, unfortunately) and what MFP tells you for the same activity, and go with the lower number for a while. Or you could go even a bit lower to be on the safe side.

If MFP says you burned 800 calories during an hour of vigorous biking, for example, but the machine said you only burned 615, log it as 600 cals, and then eat back about 80% of your exercise cals. This could help you see where your margin of error might be.

I went through the same thing and one of my big faux pas was that I was logging my weight training as "circuit training," which was generating a larger calorie burn in my diary than it should have.

thank you!


































great advice! Thank you

P.S. I just skimmed your diary, but I know a lot of salt can bloat us women and mess up scale readings. You might want to keep an eye on that for a while, too. Good luck!

Since weight loss comes down to calories in vs. calories out...

I have to respectfully disagree with that first statement, and I strongly caution anyone else struggling with plateaus and the feeling of "but I'm doing everything 'right'" not to indulge in that, what I consider to be, mind boggling philosophy. Weight loss comes down to QUALITY calories in vs. low-quality calories out. As you can see, the original poster to this thread (as well as my former self) is struggling most likely due to her diet that consists mainly of highly processed foods, even though she is usually under her recommended caloric limit and exercising regularly. You can calculate and deprive yourself of all the calories in the world and still not lose very much weight, and the weight you do lose will come back very easily, if you're not considering quality of foods you eat. It's what you're putting IN your body that matters--what you're NOT eating has very little to do with weight loss.

To the original poster: you get it by now, as most people have informed you, your diet has too many highly processed foods. Humans weren't meant to live their lives on "diet" foods. IGNORE labels on the front of foods! Things that say "low calorie" or "reduced fat" only say that IN ORDER TO GET YOU TO BUY THEM. Look at the INGREDIENTS first. Then the nutrition facts, and completely ignore what it says on the front. Don't feel any shame in making the mistake of falling for those false claims, as I'm sure most of us have (myself included), but it wasn't until I learned about Eating Clean that I understood how to really get healthy (and in turn, lose excess weight practically without trying).

It's simple! Just eat things with ingredients that you can identify. If there are ingredients that start with mono-, poly-, di-, or end with -ine, ide, etc etc--DON'T EAT IT. Even "treating" yourself to those foods could end up sabotaging your diet because those foods produce cravings. No more artificial sweetener. If you crave something sweet, treat yourself to something sweetened with honey or agave. Take it from a former Diet Pepsi junky. Once you stop eating those foods--you won't even miss them! In fact, I'm kind of repulsed by them now.

Fruit, veggies, whole grains, lentils, legumes etc will fill your stomach unlike any of those processed laboratory concoctions. It only took me a few weeks to rid myself of that junk and I saw results like I'd never imagine. Not only did the weight just start falling off (with the help of rigorous exercise), but I FEEL AMAZING! I mean I have energy and positivity just oozing from my pores--and speaking of pores, my skin looks fantastic! I can't impress upon you enough how important it is to just take all the processed junk in your house and get rid of it. While your at it, seriously limit (or completely cut out) white flour and sugar. Drink water all day long (never be without a bottle of water). And get 7-8 hours of sleep every night, generally around the same times. Keep your food intake predictable and your exercises unpredictable (research High Intensity Interval Training and Muscle Confusion Strength Training).

I'm only saying this from my own personal experience and because you expressed the desire to change something up--this is what did it for me and I so hope you'll give it a shot! If you'd like to know more tips, please send me a message and I'll tell you more about how I completely transformed my body (and in turn, my life).