As you can see by my user name, I am extremely frustrated. I have about 25 pounds to lose. I keep losing 3-5 pounds, then they come back overnight. Here is the most recent example.

I worked my butt off for 3 weeks and lost 4 pounds. I was feeling great about it, and thought I was finally on the right track. Then we had pizza for dinner. I had more than I should have, but I figured one cheat meal in 3 weeks wasn't going to undo everything overnight. How wrong I was!!! The very next day I woke up and weighed myself, same as I always do, and I had gained 3 pounds back. I thought it must be a mistake, it must be water weight. That same night I had 2 small squares of pizza for dinner, thinking this was a much better choice, and when I woke up and weighed myself the next day I had gained 2 more pounds, putting me OVER where I was before losing 4 pounds! And it is now a week later and I haven't lost a pound of that weight, so no it isn't water weight. How is this even possible?????? This keeps happening to me. I work SO hard and lose a few pounds, then literally overnight they all come right back and then some. There is no way I had 3 pounds worth of calories in one day. No way!!!!! So what gives?

I am so incredibly tired of being fat. I am so incredibly tired of my clothing not fitting me. But most of all I am so incredibly tired of failing every single time I try to do something about it! It shouldn't be this hard.

Frustrated, one cheat meal shouldn't throw you after three weeks of solid work. Are you near your cycle? How is your water intake? Are you journaling your food? You can do this.

Sigh.... It's really miserable, isn't it?

First clue: Step away from the pizza.

Some people may be able to continue eating pizza and lose weight, too, but not everyone can--and especially when they are early in their program.

And, not everyone knows when to stop. Do you have any idea how many calories are in the pizza you ate? If not, then you're playing Calorie Roulette, which is like Russian Roulette except that you want to shoot yourself later!

You don't mention whether you are formally tracking your food intake in some way, or what your current weight is. Do you track your foods with a calorie tracker? Or count WW points? Do you keep a list of what you eat every day? Also, how tall are you, and how much do you weigh? Maybe folks will have suggestions if we get a bit more information. For example, what else were you eating besides pizza?

Jay

Are you working out? Do you do cardio or strength training or both? If you do exercise, how much do you do and what do you do? Do you count calories? How many calories are you eating? Are you eating healthy fats?

Also, remember you fluctuate 1-2 lbs every day. I try to stick to one weigh in a week.

I know the feeling. I know I have to do things like drink more water, stop eating so much sodium, eat more whole foods, eat more lean meats...

Do I do them? Not always. Am I seeing results? NO.

As for pizza, I started making my own so I know what goes in it. I can track all my calories that way and load it with vegetables instead of fatty meats, use tomatoes and nix the sauce and add just a little cheese instead of the double cheese I usually get on take away pizza. I also make it thin crust with wheat flour so that's good.

Jeannette, do you have a good crust recipe? I love pizza and I am not going to give it up, but I am sure I would be happy with a homemade, lower calorie alternative if I could get the crust right.

This is the one I use:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Amazing...st/Detail.aspx

It's not really WHOLE wheat because the recipe tells you to use 1.5 c all purpose flour as well, but you can use all wheat flour if you want to. Lots of people have with great results! I use 1 TBSP of honey for the 1 tsp of sugar.

I made this for my daughter's sleepover yesterday and it was a HUGE hit. If you divide it into 10 balls, each ball is approx 177 calories. Oh, and I also bake it for 5 mins before I add the toppings, just because I like crispy dough. =)

Most pizza is a sodium nightmare

For example, Papa John's is 750-950 mg PER SLICE of a large, depending on toppings and crust

Water retention caused by excess sodium can take a few days to resolve - just a thought

I make pizza using those wraps, like tortillas but whole wheat and less in calories. I toast them in the oven for 3 minutes then add BBQ, chicken, onions and 2% cheese. They are wonderful. My family loves them.

I totally understand about the weight, it has come off and come back on. I run 3 times a week and do kettlebell workout 3 times a week. I have been taking in 1200 calories a day and the weight loss is soooooo slow. I went to the DR and he is checking my thyroid levels but feels that I need to step away from the scale and just measure every other week. I gave it a try and I lost no weight but 1 in from my waist, hips, thighs and chest. As well as .5 in from my claves and forearms. So his take is that I am building muscle and losing fat at the same time. He said if I have to weight to get a scale with body fat measurment on it to see if that is changing.

Right now I am just trying to live this new life, it has been 12 weeks and I love the way I feel. I am trying not to get so hung up on the scale.

HAve you tried to up your calorie intake, evie? I upped mine form 1200 to 1500. I don't really see a difference, but I eat 1500 cals of crap a day. =P

Thanks for all of the support. A little backstory since I'm new here:

2 years ago I lost 20 pounds using South Beach and exercising. It took about 5 months for the weight to come off (I'm 5'2") and then about as long to put it all back on again (we moved, I got divorced, kids started at a new school...). I have had so many false starts at losing it again. When I was doing SB I also counted calories on SparkPeople. I am not currently counting, because I make so much of my own food and can't find the time to input all of the ingredients, or the food I eat isn't in the SP database or something. I know, its all just excuses. But since I have done this before I have a general idea of when I am staying within range and when I'm going over. I am exercising, doing weights 2-3 times a week and cardio 4-6 times a week (45min walking at 3.6 on treadmill). All of the above has helped me slowly lose weight, but then it can all come back overnight. The pizza incident was not at a precarious time in my cycle, and I hadn't binged or anything outrageous at the same time. I was good the whole day, had too much pizza at dinner, and bam! 3 pounds came back. I was good the next day and had 2 small squares of thin pizza (4 inches on each side) and bam! 2 more pounds. I know all about water weight (my enemy!!) but that would have come back off by now. Ugh! I know I'm on the right track and I just need to keep going. I know my mom is a big saboteur for me (she and my brother came over and offered to buy pizza, I was wooed by the idea of not cooking and thought one night of pizza would be fine).

When I lost 20 pounds 2 years ago I could have cheat night once or twice a week and it was fine. Which makes it doubly frustrating that I can't do it now.

Ugh! Sorry, I guess I'm just venting.

Just remember that you did do it before. Journaling is a great tool, it really helps you keep track of everthing you're eating and when you eat it.

Im haviing pizza tonight for dinner, instead of my usual two or three pieces I will be having one piece and a big salad.

Thank you so much. It really does look delicious! When you divide up into little balls, can you freeze the dough for later? I would think that would be really convenient!

Go back to journaling. You can use fitday or a piece of paper. You don't need electronics to calorie count

Jeannette-I usally have 1200-1300 average, somedays it is 1400-1500 (like on the weekend) but it is a pretty good. The worst I do is sugar free jello or pudding, I have to have something sweet. My Dr says that is good since I am only 5'

Frustrated - I understand, I took off 98lbs 5yrs ago and it was easy. The only excerise I did was swim and my calories were around 1300 a day. I asked my DR why is this. He said, nicely, well 5 yrs ago you were 28 now you are 33. It is going to be harder. Wow just what I wanted to hear. NOT.

My thing is I try to cheat, meaning that I have to have once every 2 weeks to eat something that may not fall in my catagory of health. Somethings I will not eat no matter what, fried foods are one of those things and high calorie desserts. I go out to eat and order what I want, you will notice that those things will change without even trying.