[PhotoChick]

It's really hard to say what might be the problem on the information you've given. One thing that immediately stuck out to me is this:

I'm eating one serving of bread a day, two protein servings, 2 dairy, 1 healthy fat, and a minimum of 5 fruits of veggies a day.

There could be a couple of problems here. One is that are you SURE you're sticking with a proper serving? I don't know if you're in the US or not, but I think most Americans have a very very skewed idea of what a proper serving size is. I know that I did and so did/do most of my friends and family. A serving is actually NOT very much. Ok. So that's one thing - you could easily be eating a HECK of a lot more than you think you are.

On the other hand, if you ARE eating proper portion sizes, I put an estimate of what you're eating into my Daily Plate log and came up with this:
1 slice whole grain bread - 90 cals
4 oz grilled chicken breast - 130 cals
4 oz grilled chicken breast - 130 cals
1 glass 2% milk - 120 cals
1/2 cup 4% cottage cheese - 120 cals
1 tbsp olive oil - 130 cals
2 fruit servings (apple and banana) - 90 cals + 121 cals
3 veggies servings (broccoli, carrots, green beans) - 34 cals + 26 cals + 65 cals
That's a grand total of 1047 calories which is not enough to support your base metabolism, much less adding in exercising 3x per week. So you could also easily be eating a heck of a lot LESS than you should be. You could, actually, be putting your body in a mode where it's holding on to everything you give it, because your'e not getting enough nutrition or calories to support it.

(Isn't this fun? )

Ok, so moving on from that, the other thing is that for some people (I was one of them) I actually didn't notice a weight loss for several weeks. Some people really do take a couple of months for their bodies to get with the program ( ) and then suddenly they see a dramatic loss that levels off into something more steady. And some people (again, like me) lose in chunks and fits and starts - seeing no loss for a month at a time, and then losing 5 or 8 lbs practically overnight.

There are a whole lot of variables to losing weight and the thing that makes it so hard is that none of us are alike. Each person loses weight in a slightly different way and what works for one person might not work for another.

.

[raw23]

Thanks for asking Susan!! Lots of questions are good!
Yesterday:
2 eggs (50 cal) with a little mozerrella (40), glass of light OJ (50) and light whole wheat toast (45) and green tea (30?)
BREAKFAST: 215
Fruit shake: 12 strawberries (50), 1/4 c. blueberries (50), 1 scoop light muscle milk protein powder (100), 1 c. V8 light fruit juice (50).
LUNCH: 250
Dinner: Can of broccoli soup (not the best choice, but not the worst) 90 cal serving, serves 2.5 = 225 + 1c skim milk (50)
DINNER: 275.
Handfull of almonds after dinner: I think about 150 calories?
TOTAL: 890
No exercise. I worked out all weekend and needed the break.

Yesterday was a little abnormal. I usually dont eat that few calories. I just wasn't hungry. I had to force myself to eat dinner as it was.... which is strange.

Today I had the same breakfast as yesterday (except no toast), I'll have the same shake for lunch, I'll eat about 20 grapes, a banana and some light vanilla yogurt in the afternoon. Dinner will be chicken (two small tenders, grilled), butternut squash (a cup) and maybe some brown rice (1/2 cup) and broccoli (1/2 cup). I'll do the elliptical machine for 45 minutes after work.

Any thoughts???

[srmb60]

Surprise! I think your cals are too low. But you already knew that ..

Tell me about the 50 cals eggs and that light toast ..

[raw23]

Your right PhotoChick... maybe I'm not eating enough. As my above menu shows, I sure didn't eat enough yesterday. And your sample day is really about normal for me except I buy all the lighter stuff (skim milk, low fat cottage cheese, 45 cal bread, etc) so it's probably even less!
Hmm... I really need to be recording my daily food intake. Just bought a handy journal that I should get in 2-5 business days. Till then I'll just write it.
On the other hand (and I hate to go back to him again), the bf eats less than me. Why does he loose and I dont? Does diabetes help his loss?

[raw23]

I think eggs are 23 cal each... could be wrong.
The bread is some whole wheat light bread that's 45 cal a slice.

[ToutDeSuite]

Two eggs or eggbeaters? Two eggs are roughly around 150 calories. And I would think 12 strawberries is more like 2 cups than one, so maybe you consumed another 150 calories there. Your nuts, if not measured could have added a lot more calories, but still, even with some calorie creep factored in, your intake is still low and you should be losing.

Personally, I've never had a problem with eating less than I should, but I have heard it puts some in starvation mode and stalls weight loss.

[raw23]

Hey look all my info
<-----------
Thanks Tout!

Anyways... it is two eggs. Your prolly right about the eggs being 150. I looked up strawberries last night and found 1 berry to be 4 cal, which is about 48 cal for 12. Does that sound right?

[srmb60]

Yes, I think one egg is about 100 cals. I'd rather you had a nice slab of real whole grain bread just from a nutritional point of view.

Journal for a few days. Try one of the many online counters (fitday, dailyplate).

What have you read? Tosca Reno? Steven Pratt? Any magazines?

[raw23]

Thanks, Susan. I'll do the normal bread and check out those online counters.
What have I read? I'm a student so all I read are textbooks! haha... I think the last nutrition-type book I read was You on a Diet. Why do you ask?

[srmb60]

I find it sooo helpful to immerse myself in health/diet/fitness stuff. I read books, magazines, websites. It's like living in a cloud of information, very motivational.

Hungry for knowledge instead of icecream

[PhotoChick]

Yeah, an egg is 70 cals (give or take a few). I know - I eat 2 of them a day, almost every day.

Also you're often better off eating the full or at least partial fat varieties of things - both to boost your calories and to get the healthy fats you need.

I'm currently 163 lbs and 5'4" and I'm losing on 1500-1600 cals a day. I tried, earlier this year, to drop down to 1300 cals and I totally stalled out my weight loss. So, given that you're almost 40 lb more than I am and 4" taller, I think 1000 cals a day is waaaaaayyyyyy too low for you.

.

[raw23]

Susan: I agree, it's so much more satisfying to sit down with a book you enjoy than a fatty treat! But I'm a book nerd, too!

Wow thats really interesting, PhotoChick. I didn't think 1300 could stall weight loss. On 1500-1600 cal a day, how much do you exercise?

[PhotoChick]

Wow thats really interesting, PhotoChick. I didn't think 1300 could stall weight loss. On 1500-1600 cal a day, how much do you exercise?

On a normal week I hit the gym 4-5 times. I do 30 mins of weights (I'm using sort of a modified version of the New Rules of Lifting for Women plan) 3x a week, followed by 30 mins of ss-cardio on either the elliptical or the treadmill. The other 1-2 days I do 20 to 30 mins of HIIT cardio on the elliptical.

Also every morning when I get up before I shower I do a set of mat stretches just to get the blood flowing (sort of a combination of some Pilates type stretches combined with a short set of Tai-Chi stretches that a friend of mine who's an instructor taught me), followed by 50 crunches on the swiss ball and 50 pushups on an incline off of my cedar chest (not full *real* pushups yet - but I'm working on it).

Every once in a while I throw in a workout DVD on a non-gym day, but lately I've been slacking on those. I had a belly dance one that I was really getting into, but it's been a rather hectic month and so ... eh.

The other thing is that on the days I lift weights I do tend to be less strict with my calories (I also try to get in more protein on those days), so it's not unusual for me to go as high as 1700 cals.

.

[srmb60]

I'm going to back pedal for a minute here ...

Just in case raw23 is beginning to think that her plan is sooo bad it takes two pages of corrections to set her straight ... It's not.

All in all it's not bad at all. It's got all the food groups. I can see the logic in chosing the low cal or low fat versions of typical foods.

We're not trying to beat you into submission raw23 Please feel free to chose whatever tweaks you think you can handle and want to do. We really are just tossing ideas out there for your perusal.

Right folks?

[ToutDeSuite]

Originally Posted by raw23

Hey look all my info
<-----------
Thanks Tout!

Anyways... it is two eggs. Your prolly right about the eggs being 150. I looked up strawberries last night and found 1 berry to be 4 cal, which is about 48 cal for 12. Does that sound right?

Happy to help, raw!

I think it depends on the size of the strawberries, raw. That's why I would use a cup measurement rather individual strawberries.