skeptical....

What is your height, weight and age ?

your diary is closed, so its hard to tell.

I know how you feel -- I said the same thing. I asked if I could "trust the system" and someone simply told me to try it and see the results for myself. You have to trust it. It works.

"almost exactly".....that made me lol!!

One thing to keep in mind is doing the same time and intensity of exercise every day, means it is gradually burning less calories for you as your body becomes more efficient at it. For example, when I first started running it skyrocketed my heart rate and I burned calories quickly. As I lost weight and gained cardio health, it is a lot easier on my heart/body and I burn a lot less calories. The human body is designed for efficiency in things we do regularly.

You may see a lot of benefit from changing up your approach -- different weight training, different cardio, etc. This is of course just an idea, I have no way of knowing how you keep track of calories burned/etc. Maybe it's time for a heart rate monitor.

Some topics for consideration:

-Are you eating a lot of packaged foods? Even if they are low-cal and you are within your calorie goals, try to incorporate more vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, and carrots into your diet. Those will aid in digestion, the ability for your body to absorb nutrients, and therefore regulate your metabolism better. Same with fruits!!

-Try not to eat complex carbs after 5pm. You can have fruits and veggies after 5, but packaged carbs and complex carbs aren't such a great idea. Carbohydrates should make up about 30% of your intake.

-Shoot for 1g of protein for each pound of body weight. So if you weigh 130 pounds, aim for 130g of protein in the form of lean meats (white chicken breast, salmon, turkey) or tofu/legumes/nuts. Protein should make up roughly 40% of your intake.

-Keep in mind your body DOES need fat in order to function and metabolize food so fat should make up about 30% of your intake.

- I would also recommend lifting heavier weights. If you are doing only cardio, your body must have gotten used to it and is adapting to it as part of a normal routine. Too much cardio can even end up burning your muscle before it burns fat. Switch it up by doing heavy lifting sessions in order to trigger muscle growth. You will NOT bulk up. Muscle building is essential for a speedy metabolism because resting muscles burn up more calories than resting fat.

-Lastly, if all else fails, I recommend doing some of your own research and exploration. Bodybuilding.com has helped me customize my own fitness goals and I am seeing great results. I know I sound corny, but here is a link to the fitness plans so you should check out whichever appeals to you most and then watch all of the videos and learn about what works best.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/find-a-plan-fat-loss-2039-female.html

best of luck!!
xx

Hearing that you react so dramatically to carbs indicates to me that your body thinks it is starving... and it probably is at your height and activity level. If you are truly at 1200 calories a day AND doing all the exercise you listed, then you aren't sufficiently feeding your body. It thinks it is starving and holding on to everything you put in it. Establish a proper caloric intake amount for your body, goals, and activity level... then give your body adequate time to adjust.

Oh, one more suggestion... don't use weights for your ab work.

I've bumped my calories at least 4 times throughout my MFP "journey" and it's busted me out of my mini plateaus every time! I know it seems counter-intuitive, but believe it your body needs to believe that it's being fueled properly before it's willing to let go of your emergency reserves (fat).

try changing your goal to 1/2lb loss a week (I know it feels far away but 15lbs is REALLY close to goal as far as your body is concerned). do a search on the forums here for "plateau busting" or "upping calories" and you'll hear about many successes!


good luck, be patient

yeah this place is almost as fake as ...... HCG lmao

what are you talking about?

Are you eating back your exercise calories at all?

Just putting this out there. If your calorie goal is currently 1200 and you burnt off say 300 calories, you would now have to eat 1500 calories for that day, not 1200, because you have essentially only eaten 900 calories if you didn't eat them back.

I totally concur with this!! Your body could have also become accustomed to your workouts. Change it up a bit a few times a week. Don't get me wrong your workouts are GREAT!!! What I'm suggesting is a changeup of building lean muscle on the muscle groups you don't normally work. Building LEAN muscle in those groups will give your body the extra boost of metabolism from those lean muscles.

You can also take a number of BCAAs in the morning which can boost your metabolism giving you that extra bit of internal fat burning when you aren't working out. L-Carnitine and L-Glutamine is a good place to start with simple BCAAs.

What the previous post said.

Never eat below your BMR
Eat 500 less calories a day than your 'from normal daily activity' figure to lose a pound a week (as shown in your goals page)
Eat back your exercise calories on days when you work out

You may add weight to start, but once your body realises it will still get the food it needs it will start losing again.

I cannot eat any carbs at all or I immediately gain weight, I swear. It's very frustrating. Any suggestions?

I doubt this a lot. Unless by "carbs" you mean grains and refined sugars. Even then I doubt it.

I'm 36, 5'9, 154.

you might not have any more weight to lose. focus on muscle building and fat decrease, not the number on the scale. your bmi is 22.7 which is well within the normal range.

figure out your body fat percentage and go from there.