Rant: It's Week 4

ive tried to not eat back my workout calories, but I'm always hungry... I guess I need to try to find lower cal and lower carb meals/snacks....

Try to replace some of your carbs with protein. This tends to fill me up for a longer period of time. Protein bars (but watch the sugar content), and protein powder or shakes work for me. I just started using Pure Protein bars that I get at Walmart for around $6.50 for a box of 6 bars. Pretty tasty, filling, and 20g of protein per bar with only 2g of sugar.

This along with plenty of water may help. Good luck!

since you cook a lot, definitely cook extra for breakfast and work! I didn't look at your diary, but a lot of poeple tend to eat out for those two meals since they have work early in the day. don't worry about eating eggs and bagels for only breaksfast, if you had a healthy stirfry for dinner the night before, have it for breakfast too! other healthy snacks that are easy are hard boiled eggs, carrots, greek yogurt, granola bars, peanut butter, spinach in a bag, oatmeal.
keep in mind if you have high sodium and high water intake, you will retain the water from the sodium. sodium and water work together and make you pee less, thus weighing more. this is bad (in your case) HOWEVER, I'veseen you workout a lot, you need to keep your potassium/sodium levels UP to keep your muscles from hurting or possibly causing an injury. so besides natural salt in healthy foods, avoid adding salt or really salty potato chips.
I second the 40/30/30. If you workout frequently, MFP doesn't have enough protein in your diet.

with dinner every night I have a salad first made of spinach, grape tomatoes, and sliced cucumber. I make homemade fat free dressing but you can buy that in a store it really fills you up and a cup of spinach is 4 calories.

There is a lot you can change to achieve a better weight loss. Looking back, almost everyday, you are over on your carbs, fat, sugar, and sodium. You had it at 2000 calories a day and you were eating back your workout calories. That is a lot! Even if you're under your calories, the fat, carbs, sodium, and sugar will kill your diet plan! Get those out of the red and back in the green and I bet you start to notice a big difference.

That will come with diet change, lots of fresh fruits and veggies to replace the other things that you've been eating!

You are incredibly over in sodium everyday. You are probably bloated all the time, which will make it so you arent seeing results in the scale or the clothing. I struggle with this too (especially the last couple weeks), but it DOES make a HUGE impact!!

Hey love I looked at you diary just for today....but i can tell you from just glancing you are way high on the carbs and real low on protein..First try switching that (you can change that in MFP). Secondly, take you caloric intake down to 1,200 not 1500. You can take it back to 1500-1700 once you get to a mainenace weight and/or start lifting.

I do NOT recommend a 1,200 calorie diet. I can tell you from experience 'less' is not better. I gained 10 pounds last year eating 1,200 calories. I eat in the 2,000-2,400 calorie range now, plus weight train and exercise, and am seeing MUCH better results.

Bottomline we can give her all the advise in the world she has to figure what is best for her body and body type for me 1200 calories a day, not eating back exercise calories, 6days a week in the gym burning monday 500, tuesday 700, wednesday 900 thursday 1100, Friday Zumba, Saturday Fun day.....has gotten me a 43lb lost in 5 months...But, I say again she has to experiment and find what works for her.....I will say I am starting to move my calories eaten up some...as I get close to maintenace weight cause I am going to lift more...BUT right now I do cadio, cadio, cadio, cadio....strength training 3 days a week....LOVE find what your body needs and make it WORK!!!

Hey love I looked at you diary just for today....but i can tell you from just glancing you are way high on the carbs and real low on protein..First try switching that (you can change that in MFP). Secondly, take you caloric intake down to 1,200 not 1500. You can take it back to 1500-1700 once you get to a mainenace weight and/or start lifting.

I do NOT recommend a 1,200 calorie diet. I can tell you from experience 'less' is not better. I gained 10 pounds last year eating 1,200 calories. I eat in the 2,000-2,400 calorie range now, plus weight train and exercise, and am seeing MUCH better results.

Bottomline we can give her all the advise in the world she has to figure what is best for her body and body type for me 1200 calories a day, not eating back exercise calories, 6days a week in the gym burning monday 500, tuesday 700, wednesday 900 thursday 1100, Friday Zumba, Saturday Fun day.....has gotten me a 43lb lost in 5 months...But, I say again she has to experiment and find what works for her.....I will say I am starting to move my calories eaten up some...as I get close to maintenace weight cause I am going to lift more...BUT right now I do cadio, cadio, cadio, cadio....strength training 3 days a week....LOVE find what your body needs and make it WORK!!!

I was just stating that telling someone, as you did, to drop their calories even lower when she needs to love nearly 70 pounds is a horrible idea. Depending on your starting weight, 1,200 isn't the magic number. Which is why I gave an example of how it 1,200 is not the magic know all number. If you dont eat ENOUGH, you will eventually lose weight obviously, but do EXTREME damage to your body,including muscle loss.

Instead of changing her calories, she could eat more clean when she can. She should also up her strength training, as there is a butt load of evidence how metabolic rate and muscle mass versus just hours of cardio.

Ellesoul-
I know I struggle with being busy and not being able to have all the time in the world to cook (I recently had a death in the family, so my diary looks like hell for the last two weeks - However, my normal eating is coming back this week!!). However, a small amount of prep and know how will greatly help.

What I have found, food wise, to be helpful for quick and easy foods include things like frozen veggies and steamer bags (I prefer Green Giant and they flash freeze so they dont lose all that amazing nutrients). The sodium content is also not bad at all. I like to marinade chicken (go for low sodium options, like Kens Healthy Choice Italian Dressing) for a day or so, then toss it in the oven to bake. Very easy, relatively quick, as you dont have to do much and SO good for you. Fresh is always the best, but sometimes, you just dont have the time and this helps (Plus, frozen doesnt spoil in a day or two like fresh can).

maybe it's the carbs and junk... i try my best to eat healthy but I guess it's not enough

my workouts outs are pretty intense as it is... for eg. my elliptical workouts are on resistance 12-18... never less unless im warming up or cooling down...

and mentally I can't do the same workout everyday...

I'll try upping meats/vegetables...

Our cultural way of thinking "healthy" is still usually pretty unhealthy. People think granola bars, for example, are a health food but as someone mentioned most of them are really carby sugary junk. It's not your fault.........just do more homework on what you are putting in. I actually consulted with a nutritionist and got excellent insight as to how to fuel my body so I'm cutting calories without going hungry and still keeping my body fueled for work outs.