I'm feeling a little discouraged. About six weeks ago I started coming to this forum and started doing all the "diet" stuff because I really really want to lose weight. I've switched from a vegetarian to a vegan raw foods diet. In these six weeks, I cheated twice. I ate a couple of pieces of pizza a few weeks ago and Sunday I ate French Fries. Everything else has been vegan raw foods. I've been walking my dog anywhere from 2-5 miles a day and doing a yoga video 2 or 3 times a week. I haven't been counting calories but I chose foods with lower calories. I know that there is no way I'm eating even remotely close to the amount of calories I would eat pre-diet days. I'm drinking waaay more water, but up until Saturday I was still drinking Diet Coke, so I cut that out thinking that might be part of the problem. I also bought some three pound weights and have been doing some things out of a book, but that's only been a couple of days. Every once in awhile I jump rope in my living room.

So-my problem-I dropped three pounds pretty quick, and stayed there for like 2 weeks, then I weighed myself today and I'm a pound above my starting weight.

What am I doing wrong? I'm so discouraged that I just want to order a giant pizza and cry. Seriously. If I'm going to gain weight NOT eating pizza, then I'll eat it and stay the same apparently.

Since you just started the weights, you could be retaining water. Don't sweat it and just stay on your plan - the scale will cooperate sooner or later.
A couple things I learned along the way.
1. Journal your food. I was amazed how much even good foods can add up to. Also - it could be that you are eating too few calories and not balanced calories. Your body needs a balance of fat/protein/carbs. Journaling will help you spot potential pitfalls. Fitday is free and works well.
2. Don't despair over the scale. It is fickle and will trip you up if you stress over it. Just stay OP and don't sweat those little ups and downs

Congrats on your success so far - keep it up!

I second keeping a food diary. If we don' t keep a record of what we are eating we often eat way more than we think.

I go throught the same thing, where it takes a lot of dieting and exercise just for me not to gain. But then all of a sudden, the scale will suprise me and drop a lb or 2. My mantra has been to "just keep going, it will add up" to keep me working out and eating right, and that "everythign counts" when I feel like giving up and eating a lot of a high cal food. HTH

Thanks. I already have a little notebook that I've been tracking how many miles my dog and I walk, so I guess I'll just track my food too!

Do you have an accurate food record? It's hard to tell otherwise, but "choosing lower calorie foods" often doesn't change as much as people think it does.

i agree. i started out using fitday, but switched to daily plate--they have a free membership as well and to me it's a wee bit more simplifies. www.dailyplate.com this will track your sodium as well which can also make the scale go up. if you're eating vegan it will also help you keep up with protein which is also important with exercise.

one thing i have learned as someone that bounces all over the 150s--

don't let a few pounds discourage you. if you eat right and exercise the weight will come off. pay more attention to how you feel and how your clothes fit than a few pounds. keep it up--what yer doing and yer head!

maybe you need to re-evaluate what your doing. maybe 100 percent raw isnt for you. good luck!

With you being vegan...make sure you get enough protien...i will NOT lose if i dont get enough protien..you would be amazed how much sugar fruit and veggies have. Try to have a protien every time you eat and NEVER eat a fruit w/o a protien. That makes HUGE difference for me.

I've always done just the opposite.

I'm vegan and will often have a piece or two of fruit or a fruit smoothie for either breakfast or lunch. If I combine it with protein, it usually upsets my stomach. Also, I've already read in numerous places that you should wait 30 minutes after eating fruit before eating any other type of food.

@DaraMarie, are you eating 3-5 meals a day?

I have been eating 5 or so times throughout the day, and it's usually small things, except dinner maybe be a little bigger. Since I never really counted calories I took everyone's advice and logged everything I've eaten today, and so far I'm at 1100 calories. I'll probably have one more small snack then I'm making tofu stir fry for dinner.

As for the protein, I think I'm getting enough. I eat tofu like crazy, and BEANS! I love beans. Since my boyfriend and I have both gone vegan we've been experimenting with a lot of recipes with tofu and tempeh. And I eat peanut butter on wheat toast for breakfast a lot because I can eat and drive at the same time.

You could have a couple of things going on here and maybe a combination of things causing you to stay the same.

First if you just started the exercise part in the last six weeks you may have traded muscle for fat. In other words you may have lost 5 pounds of fat but gained 6 pounds of muscle. This can be really good because it will cause you to loose inches.

Second in the summer most people tend to retain much more water due to the heat. Also if your dog walking outside is in the heat you will retain even more. An easy way to keep track of this is to measure you anckle and if it goes up or down in size it is usually due to water. That is unless you have lost more than 15 pounds.

Third I would have to agree with Get N Healthy if you do not have enough protein you will not loose. There is only so much you can add to your diet so you could always try a supplement.

There is also the possability that you are like me and eat very healthy but to much. I was eating a very healthy 1800 cal's a day only to find out that I only burn 1328.

If I might add my .02' worth:

Tofu is a very high-fat food. It also will jack with your estrogen levels, if you're eating it as your main source of protein. I never eat more than 4-6 ounces of it in a day and that includes tempeh and soy milk. If I start feeling really tired, I go back and see how much soy I've had that day. It's usually more than the 4-6 ounces.

Best of luck in your efforts!

A lot of good advice here. I also have a few thoughts.

I agree that it's just as easy to eat too many calories worth of healthy food as it is of junk food. Too much is still too much and will cause you to gain weight - even if it's stuff that's good for you.

Tofu and lots of soy will cause bloating in a lot of people. I am not fond of tofu and don't eat a lot of it anyway, but when I do, it's always good for a few pounds of water retention.

For me protein is a HUGE big deal. I've found that since I've bumped my protein intake, I've lost weight more consistenly. On those weeks that I'm not careful about my protein, I tend to stall.

It's HIGHLY unlikely that you've gained 6lb of muscle in 6 weeks. It takes months and months to gain muscle in quantity - and even then only if you're really working at it. I wouldn't count on gaining muscle as any type of balance unless you're really working at a weight lifting type of program.

And I also agree that retaining water is probably a big thing. Drink lots of fluids to help flush out the excess salts and water ... and keep in mind that humidity and summer temps will cause your body to retain as well.

.

First, I want to thank everyone for their advice.

So I started writing down what I eat and figuring out the calories, and I'm averaging like 1500-1700 a day. I really don't know how much I should be having. Is this too much?

The water thing makes sense. When I was still drinking diet coke I was trying to drink 2 or 3 glasses of water to each diet coke, and now that I'm not drinking diet coke I'm drinking soooo much water. And it's usually pretty hot and sweaty when I walk my dog, although the last 2 days I've gone late at night so it wasn't as hot and just made my boyfriend come along (I don't really feel like being murdered, and the only thing my dog would protect me from might be squirrel, hahaha).

As far as tofu, I don't it eat every day, maybe every other, but I usually have soymilk everyday. So what should be my form of protein? More beans?

I thought maybe I'd gained some muscle, but then I remembered reading somewhere that gaining weight because of muscle is a myth??? Don't know. It does kind of feel like my scrub bottoms are a little lose at work, but my jeans feel the same. I don't know.

I think what I've decided to do is not stress about it so much. Even if I never lose any weight, I still feel sooo much better eating healthier and actually getting off my *** and walking and doing yoga and not laying in front of the TV watching sitcom reruns. And taking the step to be vegan has always been something that I wanted to do but for some reason I convinced myself it would be too hard, but it is actually really easy, and my conscience feels a little better.