Hi everyone, I just started counting calories in February. I am 313 lbs and started at first at 2100, was haviing a hard time keeping track and then had a couple days where I know I went over, now the past few days I am writing down EVERYTHING, my goal has been less than 2000, tho today I decided to make my max 1900 after several days of eating between 1600-1800 calories. I have been meaning to work out but only did a full WATP workout once and other smaller workouts. I do plan to add more fitness in the future. I have also been working on getting my sleep cycle back to normal and taking melatonin at night because of it. I haven't lost any weight yet tho and am wondering how long it will take of consistently eating less calories than normal to start to see a few lbs come off. A month maybe? I know I am being impatient......lol....

All of Feb I have been looking at the calories of things and finding substitutes and since I have been doing that I am getting an idea of all the calories I was consuming before. I must have had days where I was consuming 4000-5000 calories on some days. Mostly from eating too big of servings of things that had a higher calorie count than I ever expected. I have found that a lot of my "healthy" recipes weren't as healthy as I thought, or at least, weren't diet even though they had healthy aspects to them. Thanks for any input, just wondering around when I can expect to see a change. I want to lose a LOT of weght this year. I am starting out a little slow, but plan to cut down my calories even further as I go along and would like to lose 100 lbs this year.

I started around 1500 a week, and now I'm around 1200. Even the first week I lost though.

You were 16-1800 for about a week? I'd think if you were at 1600 you'd be seeing SOMETHING by now. Do you drink in any calories you're not counting maybe? Something like soda or coffee?

Have you lost weight in the past? You might be one of those people that has something that makes it extremely difficult to lose. I know people on this board talk about something called PCOS (I have no idea what it is really)

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It's all a maths game VaporChick. 3500 calories = 1 pound. The first thing to do is figure out how many calories you have to eat to maintain your current weight at your current activity level (plenty of cal calculators online, use several and choose a middling figure), then decide how fast you'd like to lose (generally two or so pounds per week). To lose 100 lbs per year, you'll need to cut about 1000 calories a day off of what you need to eat to maintain. And remember, as you lose, you'll have to cut even further because your caloric needs will be less.

I suggest getting a scale that measures in 2/10ths of a pound increments. I happen to like knowing that I'm making progress even if it's just a fraction of a pound. And, also, realize that sometimes your body just wants to hold on to weight. There will be completely illogical fluctuations, but ultimately the math works.

Best of luck!

Are you measuring your foods?

This scale is p***ing me off lol - I think I just need a new scale, I can't see exact weight and it's annoying me. I am going to take your advice Nibbles and get a digital scale with increments.

I'm just starting to get really serious on the calorie counting and I know I have to go even lower as I go along. I just have to get a new scale and be patient I suppose.

I don't measure my foods, at least not with a scale or anything like that. Kinda estimate. I THINK I am estimating accurately but I may have to look into it further.

Thanks everyone with your replies. I plan to get a new scale by the end of the week......this one is just too hard to gauge with those little lines inbetween weights lol

I would recommend that you measure everything, especially since you are having trouble. Nibbles is correct, it is a math game. If you take in less than you burn off, you will lose weight. Since you are not losing weight we must assume that you are somehow taking in more than you think. Stay positive! You will get better each day.

hey stay positive! measure what you eat, and get a digital scale, it's a math game, and also a game of trial and error. sometimes it ends in disaster and sometimes it ends in glorious victory. keeps life interesting don't you think?