Hi Ladies, I have been a lurker on here a while, watching everybody lose weight. I have really chnaged my eating, breakfast Oatmeal, tea, sometimes coffee, snacks are Larabars, Luna bars, fruit, lunch is sandwiches, quinoa with veggies ect. snacks more frui V8, dinner, healthy as can be with the fmaily. lots of salad.
I am doign the c25K and am in week 3 enjoying it, btu I ahve been running/walking for about 6 months. I run at about 4-5mph. I do minimum three times a week, I used to weight train with Jari Love, great dvd's!

So the quesiton is, what am I doing wrong, I am shrinking, but the scale is not going down! husband says I am shrinking, i feel I am not, I feel i still look the same, and it will never work.
Should I add more weights, longer workouts, I eat about 1300-1500 a day, I am 5'7" and this morning weighed 232! it we down to 214, and once i started the running more, it is creaping back up(not over the 3 weeks, more like over the last month or so), am i gaining muscle?
Any words of wisdom will help!!

I think you need to up your calories to compensate for the increased intensity of your workouts. Your body is probably holding on to calories to fuel the exertion. Maybe push it up to an average 1600 and see what happens. Give it a week or so before you expect to see results, but definitely eat more. Seems counter intuitive, I know, but it really does work for a lot of people.

How long have you been working on losing weight? What is your weekly weight loss average?

I agree, you may need to up your calories. When I started working out I didn't increase mine and my weight loss stopped... added more food and it started coming off again.

Maybe think about:

-taking measurements, to see if you really are shrinking
-upping your calories
-getting more sleep
-drinking more water
-removing the processed foods from your diet (Luna bars, etc.) and replacing with fruits/vegetables/lean protein.

If your body is getting smaller but the scale is not going down, that may be just OK. What that means is that you are gaining muscle because of your activity level while you are burning off fat. Muscle is more dense than fat; a pound of it takes up less space than a pound of fat. So, you may not be losing "weight" right now, but you are losing fat. You're not going to add tons of muscle forever, but it may be a phase you're going through.

It could be that adding a couple hundred calories would help support your current metabolism and activity level and thus help burn more fat. Also, be cautious about overtraining -- be sure to get one full day of rest per week. I am a little taller than you and when I was at that weight I was eating 1500ish and was active, but not as active as you are. If you're not having a post-workout snack, try having something that is easily and quickly digestible and contains both significant carbohydrate and some protein. Something like a pint of lowfat milk can do the trick. Try to have it within 30 minutes after your workout. That will help replenish glycogen stores and get protein to the muscles for repair in a timely manner.

Maybe you could start logging your calories. A while back I thought I was eating too few, but once I started logging my calories on FITDAY dot com, I found out that I was eating too many. It has reallyhelped me start losing steadily. Maybe you can try that?

Yup, up your calories. And weight lifting is not going to help burn fat, it tones muscle. Cardio is what will shed the pounds, but if you are not getting enough calories your body is fighting itself

Well, it will help you burn calories more efficiently, which will help you burn fat in the long run.

Are you trying to estimate each day how many calories you are burning and eating back those calories?

I started actually in the calorie range you are talking about. My beginning stats were very close to your own too. I had no problem dropping. I would be inclined to see a physician for a check on thyroid, blood sugar and the like.

How exactly are you tracking your calories? Are you weighing and measuring foods or just guessing? Do you leave any foods out of your tally?

Jay

Actually, weight lifting can help you raise your metabolism by building muscle. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn throughout the day. Also, a good weight lifting workout can give you cardiovascular levels of a workout and even if it doesn't, it can burn a lot of calories in a single session.

In the short run, weight lifting increases your metabolism so you burn significantly more calories at rest for at least a day after lifting weights than you do after performing cardio. In the long run, building muscle burns more calories when at rest than cardio. It's a short-sighted view that cardio burns more than weightlifting. It may or may not do so when engaged in the activity, if you compare intense cardio to lifting with very low weights. Of course, if you're only lifting 3, 5, 7 lbs weights, etc., you aren't going to be burning much. If you are lifting heavy, you are turning your body into a calorie-burning powerhouse!

Thanks for all the tips!
I have logged my food on Myplate, and 1300-1500 is the range I get, the lower range on the days I dont workout, the higher numebrs on the days I do. I always try to take a break or cross train on the days I am not doing the c25k program.
My weight was going down about 1lb a week, which was good and clothes are looking better on me, they still fit me and are loose on me, but the weight went up!!! Could it be I am gaining muscle, maybe through the running and burning fat, but muscle weighs more, so I am not seeing it on the scale, but I am seeing it by how clothes fit. For example I wear 16/18 clothes, I got reg 16 pants and they fit!! they wouldnt go above my knees before! my thigs are shrinking, but maybe I am replacing the fat on the legs with muscle.
One idea is to get one of those scales, that measure body fat when you step on it, would that show the changes in the bosy formation?
As for weight lifting I used to do Jari love DVD's for 1hr 3 times a week, with the running day between, they are usually using 3-5-8Lbs weights, but doing very high reps, it burns a lot of cals and I understand all about the afterburn, I think I am going to restart that so I can make the muscle burn the fat!!!

If you've gone from 214 to 232 in a month's time, and you are exercising, then you are not eating too little--you are eating too much. Your tracking method is off, and/or you are measuring instead of weighing, and/or you are not counting calories for all of your food. There is no way that you built 18 pounds of muscle in one month. Probably you have gained up to 3 to 5 pounds of muscle, are retaining up to 5 to 7 extra pounds of water due to using your muscles more, and the rest is fat because you're overeating.