discouraged with no results

Make sure you are eating back the calories you burn from Zumba. Also, give it time, it takes more than a week to see results because our bodies naturally fluctuate.

First off, if you're eating under 1200 and doing zumba - youre not eating enough! No woman should go under 1200 calories a day, and if you're exercising, you should be eating well over that - you are supposed to eat back some exercise calories. You're not fueling your body enough.

secondly -- did you get to where you are now *unhappy with your weight* in a week? You can't expect results so quickly.

third - zumba is pretty much all cardio right? You need to strength train too.

fourth - you can't do the same thing every day - day in and day out. Your muscles become accustomed to things very quickly and therefore have to work less to accomplish the same workout. change it up.

fifth - when you start exercising, your muscles often retain some fluid/water weight -- which will affect your scale showing a loss in the first few weeks.

sixth - you need to be sure to take rest days. it's not good for you to work out hard every day -- recovery (and sleep) is just as important for your body when you're losing weight as eating right and working out are!

Good luck!!

HI Lisa!

Please don’t get discouraged! One week is not enough time for your body to adjust, I'm sure that’s it! Give it one more week! Are there any foods or drinks you think may be sabotaging you? Sometimes (even when I stay under my calories) I can gain weight (yikes!) usually it’s a day when I have not had enough water, or ate something really processed (like Doritos, ha-ha) ... I guess what I am trying to say very ineffectually, is that sometimes my body does not process certain things well (under calories or not), don’t give up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I was thinking all wrong then. Thanks for the information. I just assumed that you had to keep it under the 1200 and then anything else burnt off from cardio was good. But I didn't know about eating back calories. I feel like that's all I do all day now is eat.

I have lost over 100lbs in the past almost 14 months -- I've plateaued a few times - and what has broken my plateaus ?? upping my calorie intake. I steady eat 1600-2000 calories a day now.

sw, 303.4
cw 200.2
lost: 103.2lbs.

I echo some of the earlier statements. Keep at it.

If you do intense cardio, you want to ensure that you keep a balanced diet. If you're not eating enough and you're working out all the time, your body will go into panic mode and hold on to every bit of fat because it's not receiving the nutrients it needs to effectively burn the fat away. As Mary mentioned, it will store that fat for energy since it's not receiving the energy it needs from somewhere else.

I don't think you have to worry about changing things up at this point, especially if you've only been doing it for a week. It's good to vary your workouts to avoid plateaus (the moment your body is so used to a workout that it stops responding, in essence your body becomes conditioned for that workout and expects it, therefore it doesnt burn as much). Only you'll know when zumba becomes too easy for you to do.

I would also recommend adding some resistance training in there. While cardio helps burn a lot of calories right away, resistance training helps burn calories throughout the day. For example, most of the calorie burn with cardio happens instantaneously. With resistance training, you burn some calories while you're working out but then even after you stop working out that resistance training continues to burn calories off, as you're muscles continue to feel the burn hours after the workout ends.

Hope this helps! And remember, healthy weight loss is not instantaneous. Keep yourself motivated!

Since we have no information to go on except you have been below your 1200 calories and doing Zumba for a week, it is rather difficult to give any advise at all. Seeing your food diary would help a great deal. Sometimes people are slow to start losing weight. One week is not that long, and results could show up in another week or two. Second, if you have not done so yet, measure yourself (chest, waist, hips) as a decrease in measurements is much more important than a change in the scale because scales just measure weight, and weight can have fluctuations of several pounds throughout the day. You could have lost fat, but be retaining water because you started a new exercise program (see here http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/200544-why-do-you-sometimes-gain-weight-when-starting-a-new-exercis ) and because your weight loss should be no more than 2 pounds for the week, you won't even see the loss. Measurements will help to see that (although a week is probably not enough for a noticeable change). Then there is not measuring food carefully enough (use measuring spoons, cups and a kitchen scale) or entries in the food database that are incorrect. Yes some of them are not accurate. Basically if it has a * beside it, that means it was entered by another member here and should be double checked to make sure they are right.

Remember also, the calorie amount given it a goal to reach. You do not, I repeat, do not want to be too far below it. Within 50 above or below is good, and that would include the calories you burn exercising on top of what you are allowed. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/225765-how-mfp-works?hl=how+MFP+works&page=1#posts-2976434

Finally, remember the key to weight loss is a moderate deficit. For most people the best setting is 1 pound per week, not two. If you are obese, 2 pounds per week should work well and you shouldn't lose too much muscle while losing the fat.

I hope this helps.

Just want to add that you are doing great - and I also echo what everyone said above. You need to get at least 1200 calories a day. If you burn off 500 by doing Zumba, eat them back but with healthy, clean foods.