I would suggest changing your exercise routine. Weight training has been shown to be more effective than massive amounts of cardio for weight loss in the long run. This isn't just about the muscle you eventually put on, but an "afterburn" effect that keeps your metabolism elevated after a session.
Three days a week, you would do a full body circuit-type weight routine and no cardio that day. The other three days, you would do 30-45 minute interval-type cardio sessions. You would warm up for say 5 minutes, then go hard for a couple of minutes, then back off easy for 4 minutes, and repeat for the length of the cardio session. Intervals also produce an afterburn effect that steady state cardio doesn't.
You are pushing yourself pretty hard during your cardio and are probably stressing your body with such hard sessions at a sizable calorie deficit. I think you should have lost weight even if you had been taking in 1800 calories.
I think i am going to try and pay A LOT more attention to food. I guess part of me sorta figured that if I work out a whole bunch then I didnt have to focus so much on what i was eating even if a lot of the things were healthy. I'm going to make a concious effort to really track all the food I'm eating and see what comes from that. I also think I'll start weight training. I've been avoiding that cuz at my college gym there are like NO girls down on the floor with all the weights. All the girls are upstairs doing cardio and thats where I felt more comfortable. I'm not sure the 1/4 cup thing will work becaues i dont carry a purse with me but I think I've cooked enough to eye ball it pretty well. I really want this and I want to be entirely commited and hopefully with all this wonderful advice, the weight starts coming off and I'll feel like I can actually do this! Thank you everyone. I really appreciate it. :-)
If you scroll down a bit, you will come to his Sept 10th entry "Training to Maximize Fat Loss". If you keep scrolling, you will get to the sub-heading "Fat Loss Training Studies", which talk about what I brought up in my earlier post about exercise.
