3 weeks - what am I doing wrong?

For the last 3 weeks, I have been working out 5 days a week. I burn between 550 to 600 calories per workout. I weight train either 1 or 2 times in the week.

As for eating, I'm 50/50 on good and bad days. My BMR is 2050. My allotted calories is 1550. With a workout I'm usually allowed to eat 2100 calories or so. On my bad days - I'm at 2500. I've had two 3000 days. I drink my water. I eat my fruits and veggies.

I know my eating could be better. But I have not lost a pound in 3 weeks. Are my bad days really causing me to be so stalemated? What's going on? I'm so frustrated.

The only thing that is giving me some positive feedback is that in my strength training I'm already increasing weights and muscle stamina.

If all your doing is checking the scale every night, you might as well go ahead and shoot yourself in the feet now. The scale means nothing unless your tracking all the elements you mentioned earlier and taking accurate measurements of your body. The scale is going to fluctuate, regardless of whether you workout or not. Plus 3 weeks really isn't ample enough time to get any real results. Maybe some stronger feeling muscles and some soreness, thats really about it. Continue doing what your doing.
Let your body adapt to your routine. Maybe start cutting out other "bad" foods from your regular eating habits. Take pride in the accomplishments you make in the gym; i.e. more weights, more reps, more sets, more miles...whatever. Those ARE successes. The scale means nothing, unless you factor in everything else.

Like heather said take measurements or even try on some pants that are two tight every couple of weeks. those are better gages. When I first started I didn't weigh for three months for this exact reason of being tied to the scale.

Trust me, try not to focus on the pounds. As mentioned here, take measurements because you will see more results that way.

It took MONTHS for me to start seeing a change in the scale even though my clothes were getting loser and I felt more energized. Finally, the pounds seem to be melting off.

Don't give up! Throw that scale in the back of the closet and keep at it.

I would think you could also safely lower the calorie intake from your BMR for now til you start losing - when you get closer - add some back.

With as much weight as you have to lose, you should be seeing some pounds shedding. To gain a pound, you need to eat 3500 calories over your BMR. It's possible that you are evening out.

Maybe you are eating too many calories right now. So cut down on the calories, even lower than you have them set, going no lower than 1800 net calories per day at this point, meaning, the more you exercise and burn, the more you can eat.

Second thing that could be going on is you're burning a lot more calories than you think you are (do you have an HRM?). For larger people the amounts on the machines at the gym are about half, for smaller people they are double. So you can think you're eating plenty but with a lot of exercise you've actually put your body into starvation mode - I went thru that, got an HRM and it solved my problem.

Third thing - there may be a medication you're taking that screws up your metabolism so that whatever you do, you'll stay put. I went thru that too. Very frustrating 4 mos for me, and like you, I was working my butt off!

Fourth option - you have a chemical imbalance. Get some blood work done, have your thyroid checked.

It takes about a month for your body to adjust, so don't be flipping back and forth on stuff, do one thing consistently for a month, then see what your results are. And yes, as everyone says, measure. Weigh yourself once a week at MOST, in the morning, before eating. Don't weigh yourself any other time of day.

Since you're going over cals about 50% of the time, I would work on getting that fixed first. Once you get to the point where you are consistently eating within cals, then wait a month and see if you lose weight. If you're not, check out reason #2 and go from there.