Help!! still no weight loss-- motivation going down :(

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beyond_beauty87
beyond_beauty87 Posts: 48 Member
in Motivation and Support
in the last 3 weeks, i have been exercising everyday doing 20-25 minutes of strength/weight training finishing with cardio. I have my calorie to 1830 and i'm always under. I don't eat the exercise calories allowed. I have only lost 2 lbs in the last 3 weeks and lost 5.5 inches overall. I know they say not to focus on the #on the scale better to look at how clothes better fit or inches lost. etc. However, i'm getting extremely frustrated. I'm counting my calories with everything i eat,been exercising every single day and i usually weight once a week but since my last weight in about 1.5 ago i have been weighing every morning in hopes of the scale moving down even a little bit. It hasn't, its stayed the same and the last time i weighed which was yesterday morning said i gained. I have a goal of losing 124lbs to get to my goal weight of 160lbs. I'm thinking at the weight i am i should be losing weight every week. I'm feeling very frustrated, unmotivated and just plain down. Putting so much hard work into something and not getting any results. I know the inches i lost are a great accomplishment but right now i would take pounds lost than anything right now. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated
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Replies

  • 100lbstoloosefemale
    100lbstoloosefemale Posts: 34 Member
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    first of all, in the early months STOP WEIGHING YOURSELF ,,,go with how your clothes are getting looser, and from what people say,,face thinner,,and measuring tape,, you may have gained muscle, hun add me, im in the same boat, 3 weeks ive been doing this,, and prolly lost 6lbs,,,its frustrating but we must not give up and give it time! i know i feel like i have to work out HARDER!!! i do the jillian miceals videos and i give up usually in the last 5 minutes,, keep trying
  • eawest42
    eawest42 Posts: 5
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    I feel ya, sis! I had a full month when I started dieting before the scale moved. Then KAPOWEE, I dropped 15 pounds in a month. I had what my doctor called a "sticky throttle" where my body was used to having a certain amount of calories and when I cut it in half, I went into starvation mode and my body stored everything. It does not usually last more than a month.
    Keep up the good work! 5.5 inches is amazing! You can do it!!!
    Also, only weigh yourself once a week. Anything else is too much.
  • nycgurl92
    nycgurl92 Posts: 2
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    I agree when you see your weight hasn't gone down the more motivation you'll loose.
  • FranceeC
    FranceeC Posts: 2
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    what have you been eating? that has a HUGE effect on weight loss! and grest job with what you have lost!
  • beyond_beauty87
    beyond_beauty87 Posts: 48 Member
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    what have you been eating? that has a HUGE effect on weight loss! and grest job with what you have lost!

    my food diary is open.-- today was a cheat day so i didn;t bother recording it
  • AlicynH
    AlicynH Posts: 201 Member
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    I was really frustrated because I hadn't lost anything in a month. Today I did my monthly measures and have lost 2 inches off my waist and 1.5 inches off my hips. If you're working out, you're probably building muscle. Don't give up. Even if you're not loosing weight, you are getting healthy. Good luck.
  • BSBgirl337
    BSBgirl337 Posts: 119 Member
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    You might not be eating enough. You should always eat your minimum calories for the day. I'm agreeing with the other poster that your body thinks it is starving and storing it. And I listen to my body. If you exercise, and are still hungry, eat back some of your exercise calories. If you're not still hungry, just eat your minimum for the day.

    You also might want to stop doing the strength training everyday. I am an advocate that everyone should do cardio everyday, especially those of us with a desk job because we sit in a chair all day long. However, with strength training, your muscles do need rest. Maybe try every other day? And at least rotate what muscle groups you work. If you do arms one day, do abs the next, etc.

    Keep it up! It will come off! I try to just weight myself once a week because if the scale doesn't move, or it goes up a little, I get upset and it ruins my whole day!
  • sqwerly
    sqwerly Posts: 31
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    You are not alone.

    I am not losing lbs but i have lost inches. The biggest thing is i have noticed my endurance and energy has really increased, i am burning through my workouts where before i was barely finishing.

    I was getting really upset as well but you need to look for what changes are taking place. Do not get discouraged. Keep making healthy choices and things will happen.
  • sun33082
    sun33082 Posts: 416 Member
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    Diary isn't open.

    But you say you don't eat all of your calories and you don't eat back your exercise calories....that's one problem.
  • mkbledsoe
    mkbledsoe Posts: 132
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    2 lbs in 3 weeks is totally not unreasonable. Quit expecting miracles.
  • BSBgirl337
    BSBgirl337 Posts: 119 Member
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    Your diary isn't open, and I can't see it, but how often are you having cheat days? And are you cheating and having a piece of cake, or are you cheating and having a full meal at Red Robin? I ask because that may be why you're not losing weight. If you have a cheat day once a week, you are probably confusing your body if you are eating whatever you want all day.
  • sun33082
    sun33082 Posts: 416 Member
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    Now that your diary is open....log consistently, eat all of your calories, cut the carbs, up the protein, and work on cutting out processed food.
  • meshashesha2012
    meshashesha2012 Posts: 8,326 Member
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    i know people say a calories is a calorie but i've found that for my body that isnt true. if most of my calories are from carbs then i tend to not lose because carbs (not from fruits and veggies) make me retain water. same thing is i go over on sodium.

    i'd suggest playing with your macros and changing your goals to also track sodium and fiber as well as fats, protein and carbs. and don't forget to drink your water!


    and losing 5.5 inches over the course of 3 weeks is pretty good. i wouldnt worry so much about the scale if your losing inches
  • MarlinWil
    MarlinWil Posts: 119 Member
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    Hey!

    So the theme is that we ALL have been/are there, and we ALL feel for you and want to help. I was reading through some posts today, and came across this one - couldn't add to it, because it's full up, but for sure I got heaps of ideas and inspiration. I've added the link here for you to go straight to it:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/668183-what-s-your-weight-loss-plan?page=2

    There were a couple of posts that seemed a little bit sarcastic, but the rest of them are well worth the read. Also, a lot of what has been said in response to you will help. I feel discouraged, but that isn't because of putting the effort in and not getting results - it's because of being time-poor and struggling to find a balance that allows me to meet my need for activity and good health.

    Personally, I think it's awesome that you are losing inches, because the weight loss won't be far behind. It just will take a while for your body to get into a new habit - it's taken a lot longer than three weeks to create it, so your body will probably want to take it's time to adjust to the change and make sure it's here to stay. Your job is to ride through that frustration and start to tell your body what it needs, rather than becoming a slave to old habits. I'm SO talking to myself here! But I think it fits for all of us who are on that journey from bad habits to healthy and energy-creating ones.

    Good luck. I think you are going to achieve amazing things. Certainly reading through some of the stories on here has helped me to feel motivated and overcome those days where I just want to throw my hands up in despair. There were some great inspirational quotes I read this morning, too, and I'll have to post again to give you the link, but they made me smile and also made me sit up a little straighter when I read the ones that challenged and spoke to the part of me that feels overwhelmed.
  • mariarose88
    mariarose88 Posts: 37
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    I'm definitely not an expert, but based on my own experience losing about 50 lbs I can tell you what worked for me. If you want to lose faster, you're probably going to have to cut your cals down to 1500 or lower. I don't know how tall you are though. Honestly, at this point in your weight loss you should be seeing the biggest results that you'll see on your whole journey. I lost like crazy at the beginning and as I get closer to my goal weight it takes more and more time to see the pounds come off. When I was 180-150 I lost at the rate of about 2-5 pounds a week depending on what I did. I was eating 1200 cals (I'm 5'2'') and exercising 6 days a week. I did about an hour of cardio almost every day and no weight training. I actually started weight training pretty recently because I learned about how important it was in getting to a healthy weight for someone of my height.

    I would really recommend that you focus mainly on cardio for the moment. Weight training is awesome, but cardio is what you really need to see the pounds come off as fast as you want. Focus on building endurance right now and it'll get easier and easier to do cardio for longer and longer. Some super athletic and fitness-oriented people are really against doing cardio for long period of time, but when you need to lose a lot of weight I really think it's the way to go.

    Another thing to remember is that the major determinant of weight loss isn't exercise but nutrition. Exercise is super important to maintain a healthy body and it's incredible for your sense of well-being, but what you put in your body is so much more important. Just think that at most you can burn about 500 some cals an hour. It takes about 5 minutes to put the 500 cals back in your body. The most straightforward advice I can give you is to ensure that about 60% or more of your plate is fruits and veggies. Lean protein and whole grains should fill up that rest. It's definitely hard to transition into that kind of eating, but if you'd like websites/cookbooks with great, simple and cheap recipes for this kind of eating I can definitely recommend some!!

    Finally, in order to build muscle you need to make sure you're giving your muscles adequate time to rest in between weight training sessions. The recommendation that I've found most often is to take a rest day from weight training (but not exercise!) every other day. However, the rule does not apply to cardio. As long as you're not pushing yourself to the point of injury, you can pretty much do cardio every day with no issues.

    Sorry I wrote a book, but I hope this helps a little!!
  • MarlinWil
    MarlinWil Posts: 119 Member
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    So here's that other link - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/666838-give-it-to-me-baby-uh-huh-uh-huh.

    By the way, I think you have incredible eyes. Be gracious and receive the compliment. It's given by a happily married woman who believes we don't give enough compliments, and for sure we girls suck at receiving them.
  • shosh413
    shosh413 Posts: 135 Member
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    EAT BACK YOUR CALORIES AFTER YOU EXERCISE!!!!
  • sdavis448
    sdavis448 Posts: 195 Member
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    It does seem kinda strange that this early your not losing more quickly... I lost 50 lbs in three months.. and now am hitting the point where it's slowing way, way down... if your goal is first to drop the pounds, I'd focus more on cardio then strength training.. if your putting on muscle, the scale isn't going to drop as much, even if the inches do.
  • ethansmug
    ethansmug Posts: 159 Member
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    I am sure others have said it, but stop looking at the scale. All it does is frustrate you and make you not want to do the things you know you should do.

    Are you feeling better? Has you quality of life improved? Have you noticed your clothes getting bigger?

    If the answer to any of those is yes, then *kitten* the numbers and just continue doing what you are doing =]
  • bsajbel
    bsajbel Posts: 2
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    Hey, girlie! Couple quick thoughts- a lot of people don't realize that there's a difference between net calorie burn and gross calorie burn. When I go for a two mile run, the treadmill will say I burned 200 calories- most machines and programs tell you gross calorie burn. The problem is, that gross calorie burn actually represents what you burned from the exercise itself AND what you would have burned according to your BMR (basal metabolic rate), which is basically what you burn during that same time, anyway. Problem is, with MyFitnessPal, BMR has already been taken into account in calculating recommended daily calories. As such, my two miles actually burns closer to 175 or 180 net calories, which is really what should be factored into my daily diet. It doesn't seem like much in terms of one run, but if you're exercising every day like you say you do, that could really affect the rate of your weight loss.

    Secondly, I'm guessing if you didn't work out before you began this plan, you're probably drinking a LOT more water than you used to when you began this journey. One gallon of water weighs 8.35 pounds, so if your initial weigh-in was on a normal, pre-workout day and now you're weighing in after having upped the amount of water constantly in your system, it's perfectly normal for it to be several pounds above the weight you've actually lost.

    A final thing, you HAVE to include cheat days and foods into your diary or you will sink yourself incredibly quickly. Weight loss is almost exclusively a numbers game, especially in the beginning stages. You must have a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat. If you have a "cheat day," you can undermine an entire week's worth of calorie burn in one meal. (A fast food burger or half of most pizzas is over 1200 calories, a 16 ounce milkshake can add over 800 calories, and French fries can easily run 500) I had a cheat day once on my program and entered the foods after the meal- I had doubled my recommended calories for the day and I was disgusted, but seeing it visually made me realize I would never do it again. Make sure you're looking at the weekly averages in your MyFitnessPal program, especially the graphs. Seeing I ate X grams of fat in a numerical table means nothing to me until I see on a pie chart that X grams of fat is where 30% of my calories came from the week! The bar graph is really helpful because it puts a line across your chart so you can easily tell what days you were over or under and if you can afford a cheat. Honestly, every week I see that I stayed under most days, I'm so proud of myself that I don't want to cheat and blow all of that hard work.

    Best of luck!

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