2 Months - Gained 2 Pounds - No Noticeable Difference

I'm no expert, so I really don't know the "right" thing to say. However, I do know that many people will ask you to open your food diary so they are able to give you better advice. I didn't lose a single pound the first month I started. I hope you are able to see changes soon though. Good luck.

Without seeing your diary, I'll go with what you said... "I know my eating isn't the greatest"

I think you answered your own question. Your exercise seems on point but without seeing your diary for specific suggestions, I'd guess there's something lacking in your diet. Also in general terms fasting usual doesn't create sustainable weightloss.

I should add that I am 5'2 and 132 pounds at the moment.

You're also in a healthy body weight for your height, so bringing your weight down from there would mean concentrating on building muscle, increasing your water intake, reducing sodium consumption...

What kinds of foods are the quick added calories for in your diary? Keep in mind, the quick added calories do not account for anything but calories. So you still have fat, sodium, carbs, you get the picture.

stick with it , it will happen....
just make sure you are watching your sodium as well

Most days I looked at you are not eatting enough. Since you have so little to lose you need to consume more. Go to the search function and look up eatting more, losing the last 10 pounds. You will find some great articles.

This is the last 10 pounds thread I saved. It is very informative.

I still see many people that are confused or "question" the idea of eating your exercise calories. I wanted to try (as futile as this may turn out to be) to explain the concept in no uncertain terms. I'll save the question of "eating your exercise calories" for the end because I want people to understand WHY we say to do this.

NOTE: I'm not going to use a lot of citation in this, but I don't want people thinking this is my opinion, I have put much careful research into it, most of which is very complicated and took a long time for me to sift through and summarize, and thanks to my chemical engineering background I have the tools to read clinical studies and translate them (somewhat) into more human terms. Some of this information comes from sources I can't forward because they are from pay sites (like New England Journal of Medicine), so you can ask for anything, but I may or may not be able to readily provide it for you (I can always tell you where to go if you want to though).

I'll break it down into 3 sections.
Section 1 will be our metabolic lifecycle or what happens when we eat and how our body burns fuel.
Section 2 will be what happens when we receive too much, too little, or the wrong kind of fuel.
Section 3 will be the steps needed to bring the body to a healthy state and how the body "thinks" on a sympathetic level (the automatic things our body does like digestion, and energy distribution).

Section 1:
Metabolism, in "layman's" terms, is the process of taking in food, breaking it down into it's components, using the food as fuel and building blocks, and the disposal of the poisons and waste that we ingest as part of it. Metabolism has three overall factors, genetics, nutrition, and environment. So who we are, what we eat, and how we live all contribute to how our metabolism works. You can control 2 of these 3 factors (nutrition, environment).
When you eat food, it is broken down into it's component parts. Protein, vitamins and minerals are transported to the cells that need them to build new cells or repair existing cells. Fats(fatty acid molecules) and carbohydrates are processed (by 2 different means) and either immediately burned or stored for energy. Because the body doesn't store food in a pre-digested state, if you eat more carbs and fat then you need immediately, the body will save them for later in human fat cells (adipose tissue). This is important to realize because even if you eat the correct number of calories in a 24 hour period, if you eat in large quantities infrequently (more then you can burn during the digestion process), your body will still store the extra as fat and eliminate some of the nutrients. (Side note: this is why simple or processed carbs are worse for you compared with complex carbs)

Section 2:
The human body has a set metabolic rate (based on the criteria stated above), this rate can be changed by overall nutritional intake over a period of time, or by increasing activity levels also over a period of time (the exact amount of time for sustained increase in metabolic rates is the subject of some debate, but all studies agree that any increase in activity level will increase the metabolism).
It is important to note that obesity does not drastically change the level of metabolic process, that means that if you become obese, you don't burn a higher fat percentage just because you have more to burn.
The balance of incoming fuel vs the amount of fuel the body uses is called maintenance calories, or the amount of calories it takes to run your body during a normal day (not including exercise or an extremely lethargic day). The metabolism is a sympathetic process, this means it will utilize lower brain function to control it's level, it also means it can actively "learn" how a body is fitness wise, and knows approximately how much energy it needs to function correctly. It also means automatic reactions will happen when too much or too little fuel is taken in. Too much fuel triggers fat storage, adipose tissue expands and fat is deposited, also free "fat" cells (triglycerides) will circulate in the blood stream (HDL and LDL cholesterol). Too little fuel (again, over an extended period) triggers a survival mode instinct, where the body recognizes the lack of fuel coming in and attempts to minimize body function (slowing down of non-essential organ function) and the maximization of fat storage. It's important to note that this isn't a "switch", the body does this as an ongoing analysis and will adjust the levels of this as needed (there is no "line" between normal and survival mode.).
When you're activity level increases, the human body will perform multiple functions, first, readily available carbohydrates and fats are broken down into fuel, oxidized, and sent directly to the areas that need fuel, next adipose (body) fat is retrieved, oxidized, and transported to the areas it is needed for additional fuel, 3rd (and this is important), if fat stores are not easily reachable (as in people with a healthy BMI where adipose fat is much more scarce), muscle is broken down and used for energy. What people must realize is that the metabolism is an efficiency engine, it will take the best available source of energy, if fat stores are too far away from the systems that need them or too dense to break down quickly, then it won't wait for the slower transfer, it will start breaking down muscle (while still breaking down some of that dense fat as well).

Section 3:
The wonderful part of the human metabolic system is it's ability to adapt and change. Just because your body has entered a certain state, doesn't mean it will stay that way. The downfall to this is that if organs go unused over a long period, they can lose functionality and can take years to fully recover(and sometimes never).
As long as there is no permanent damage to organ function, most people can "re-train" their metabolism to be more efficient by essentially showing it (with the intake of the proper levels and nutritional elements) that it will always have the right amount and types of fuel. This is also known as a healthy nutritional intake.
Going to the extreme one way or the other with fuel consumption will cause the metabolism to react, the more drastic the swing, the more drastic the metabolism reacts to this (for example, a diet that limits fat or carbohydrate intake to very low levels). In general terms, the metabolism will react with predictable results if fuel levels remain in a range it associates with normal fuel levels. If you raise these fuel levels it will react by storing more fat, if you lower these fuel levels, it will react by shutting down processes and storing fat for the "upcoming" famine levels. The most prominent immediate issues (in no particular order) with caloric levels below normal are reduced muscle function, reduction of muscle size and density, liver and kidney failures, increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, and gallstones .


Now onto the question of "Eating your exercise calories"

As I have hinted to throughout this summary of metabolic process, the body has a "range" in which it feels it is receiving the right amount of fuel. The range (as most doctors and research scientists agree) is somewhere between 500 calories above your maintenance calories and 1000 calories below your maintenance calories. This means that the metabolism won't drastically change it's functionality in this range, with that said, this is not exact, it is a range based on averages, you may have a larger or smaller range based on the 3 factors of metabolism stated at the top.
On our website (MyFitnessPal), when you enter your goals, there is a prebuilt deficit designed to keep you in the "normal" metabolic functionality while still burning more calories then you take in. This goal DOES NOT INCLUDE exercise until you enter it. If you enter exercise into your daily plan, the site automatically adjusts your total caloric needs to stay within that normal range (in other words, just put your exercise in, don't worry about doing any additional calculations). Not eating exercise calories can bring you outside that range and (if done over an extended period of days or weeks) will gradually send your body into survival mode, making it harder (but not impossible) to continue to lose weight. The important thing to understand is (and this is REALLY important) the closer you are to your overall healthy weight (again, your metabolism views this a a range, not a specific number) the more prominent the survival mode becomes (remember, we talked about efficiency). This is because as fat becomes scarce, muscle is easier to break down and transport. And thus, the reason why it's harder to lose that "Last 10 pounds".

I really hope this puts a lot of questions to bed. I know people struggle with this issue and I want to make sure they have the straight facts of why we all harp on eating your exercise calories.

-Regards,

Banks

I don't know our age, but I plugged 30 into an on-line "ideal weight" calculator. Based on that, your gender (female), current weight (132) and height (5' 2"), you are in the "healthy" BMI range.

You say you are exercising all the time and including weight lifting, and you are "more toned" and your love handles are shrinking. So I'm guessing that you are LOSING FAT and GAINING MUSCLE. Muscle is more dense than fat, so a pound of muscle takes up less space on your frame -- makes you look better in the mirror -- than a pound of fat.

Also, based on your "quick calorie" diary entries, you seem to be guessing the calorie content of a lot of what you eat. Do you live in Tokyo? Is it hard to find more exact information on what you are eating?

Another issue is eating out, which you say you do every day. It's HARD to lose weight eating out a lot. Restaurants are notoriously bad about throwing in extra butter, oil, sugar, etc., because they want you to really enjoy the food and come back often. Plus restaurant portions are huge (in the US, anyway, don't know about Tokyo).

Finally, I'll repeat what others said -- losing weight is 80 or maybe even 90 percent DIET. Exercise is icing on the cake (to use maybe an inappropriate metaphor). THEREFORE pay very careful attention to WHAT and HOW MUCH you are eating. It is really the core of the battle.

wow SNEWSOME! that description was amazing! Thank you for the information. It made lots of since and you did well!

Weight loss is in 80% diet. Cut out as much processed food as you can and you'll start seeing a difference. Also watch your fat intake x