I'm so fustrated. I haven't lost near anything and I've been exercising for 40 minutes everyday, 30 last week and 30 the week before. Sure, I've been having trouble with the food, gone off a few times (including today =/) and sure, I didn't expect to see any results immediately but I haven't lost anything yet, I weighed myself and it seems like I gained weight, but I haven't been doing strength training. I don't get it, I feel like I"m doing all this work to get to a different weight and nothing is working.

It sounds to me like you are going to have to buckle down and get your eating under control in order to see some results. That also happened to me the first few weeks - I was exercising with a personal trainer, but my eating was just kind of so-so. I wasn't losing any weight until I started tracking my calories and keeping under a certain amount every day. Then the weight started coming off.

Try sites like fitday.com, the daily plate or spark people. They are all really great tools for tracking your calories. Good luck!

We've all been at that point where everything seems so frustrating. It's especially difficult if you're not seeing positive results on the scale. In my opinion, losing weight is 80% diet / 20% exercise. From your post it sounds like you're not sticking to your eating plan, that probably accounts for the lack of progress. It's shocking how many extra calories can be hidden in those little cheats. I've found calorie counting & food journaling to be extremely helpful.

On the positive, I think pretty much every single person has had to deal with not seeing expected results. But you should be happy knowing that you got out and did something about 50% of people probably didn't do this week - exercise! Definitely stick with it, maybe double check your calories and you'll see results soon. Good luck & stay strong!!!

You would be amazed how much you have to exercise to burn off even low calorie food. So if your eating is not closely controlled, you aren't going to lose weight with just exercise.

I would even go so far as to say that the 80%/20% food/exercise weight loss ratio is too high on the exercise side (this article really made an impression on me and might explain what you are experiencing). It's really all about the food. Don't get me wrong, the exercise is great and important for your overall health and fitness, but losing is about the food. Take control of your eating and you'll see results.

hey fat pants (hahaha i feel awkward saying that but)

speaking of exercise, i see that you have a running blog. how did u get started into running? id like to start up at the gym, but i never run and i dont know how to get myself to a good pace

CLCSC.....thanks so much for posting the link to that article. I thought it was excellent and tended to agree with it. Well, hard to disagree since so many facts and studies were cited.

I'm a big fan of Gary Taubes' views and am currently reading Good Calories, Bad Calories. It's really fascinating to me how they are debunking previous beliefs about weight and weight loss.......and also debunking many prior beliefs about treatment and causes of diabetes....esp. type II diabetes....which there has been an unprecedented explosion of in recent years.

I'm so glad to see these things being debunked, too. It's about time people started realizing that most of the things they accuse overweight people of are simply not true.

deena

Do you just weigh or do you also measure? You may have lost fat but built muscles, wich will weigh more. If that`s the case you`ll have still lsot inches and your clothes should feel loser?

Stella's right. When I first started exercising, I *had* to build up muscle, so I could become strong enough to walk without a cane. This coupled with being on insulin and other meds (antidepressants) notorious for causing weight gain, and I figure if my weight is staying the same instead of going up, it's a victory.

If you do everything you should be doing, and you don't see a weight loss yet, consider other health measurements. How is your blood pressure? Are you getting stronger? Can you climb a flight of stairs without panting? Weight loss will most likely follow, but these other things are just as important.

you don't have to be doing strength training to be building muscle. I'm sure the exercise is changing your body and your metabolism. It's been my experience that I need to keep the eating in check, even when I get the exercise up to good level. don't be bummed, you learned something, and keeping to an exercise routine is an accomplishment, that's not always easy to do.

I started out focusing on the food only. It's been two months and I've only just this week thrown in the exercise.

For me, exercise throws in another variable that makes my body do whacky things that reflect poorly on the scale. If you're ok with that, great! Of course exercise is the way to go. But for me, I just wasn't strong enough mentally to handle that yet. So I gave my body a good head start with just the diet first.

That article was really intersting, thanks CLCSC! I particularly appreciated the part about how the will-power muscle gets weaker as you use it--it's nice to be armed with that knowledge. I really feel that being informed and prepared about what to expect helps to fight these kinds of realities (which I would imagine lead to or at least contribute to those horrid statistics on weight loss success!) And the part about X hours of intense activity being the same as X +2 of non-intense activity (or whatever the math was, not sure) being the same.

lol! no worries!

I started with the Couch to 5k program, you can google it and it should come up. It's a run/walk interval program that eventally builds up to running for half an hour or a 5k, whichever you prefer. So like the first week is run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes, rinse and repeat for 30 minutes. I believe it's a 9 week prgram but don't feel like you have to move as quickly as the prgram does... It took me much longer than 9 weeks and eventually I just started running outdoors on my own. I didn't start out running very fast (maybe 4.3 mph on the treadmill) and just focused on distance. It is SO much fun and it hepled me get the majority of my weight off! Running really has changed my life. It's amazing.

We have a January Runner's thread in the exercise forum if you need some great advice from veteran runners! They are so, so nice and always willing to help and answer any questions!

wow I just checked that out and that's definitely something I could do!

I broke my foot surfing back 2 years ago and its always hurt since than so when I tried to run it would KILL me. so this really could be a good fix to all that pressure all at once that is such a problem

I actually haven't measured, just weighed.
And yes, thank you for the article. I read it last night and slept on it and I got a lot out of it.
I see what everyone is saying, and it makes sense, some of my clothes feel looser but I've always thought that even if I did lose inches it would still show on the scale?

No, not necessarily. I always do both, and then there is usually at leat one area in which I score. :-) Its also very motivational to see where you have come from. Measuring motivates me a lot, as I also see where I have lost the weight, not just that I have lost it.