Hi !

I am a little, ok a lot disturbed that I started eating healthy again and exercising and have had no weight loss. I have been dieting for the past two years. The first few weeks the pounds fly off ( as you all know) but then I'd self sabotage and gain it back. However this time I haven't lost an ounce. I can't figure out why. My body usually loses pretty easily. I've also heard that newly gained fat is easier to lose than old fat. that being said, why am I nOt losing? I'm doing what I was back in oct of last year when it really worked but now it's not. There are only a few things I can think of that are diff. One I'm a year older so could my metabolism have slowed that much?! Also, I stopped exercising for awhile and I just started running a few times a week again (only been about two weeks). Thirdly, I have gone from a sedentary job 5 days a week to working in the hospital 3 days a week. Could I be retaining water from being on my feet all day? I am just so confused concerned and discouraged

Has this Happend to you ladies ever? Oh and I've done measurements. They haven't changed either. I'm eating very well and drinking lots of water too!

Ha Dianne,

I feel for you, I've seen you struggle with this the past few weeks. It must be so annoying. Haven't you lost anything? Or just not enough that you feel it counts?

What is your current plan? How many calories do you eat and what kind of calories are they? I know you've been at this for a while and know what you are doing - but maybe this time you need to change it up some? Do it completely different? I couldn't imagine doing it other than calorie counting, but there's people that use different plans so who knows. And just wondering, how old are you? :P

Goodluck and don't get too annoyed, you know you are living healthy, that DOES count for something also. You will figure it out.

With me the reason I am 'stuck' is because I -know- I don't log al my offplan calories and I know I don't go to the gym as much as I did before when I lost loads in a short time. So I do get annoyed because I live so much better than when I am not on plan yet it isn't enough to make me really lose anything it just seems unfair. lol.

Goodluck!

Hi philana! Thanks for the cOncern! I'm about to be 25 in march. I'm eating about 1300-1600 cals a day. Running about 3 days a week. And my lifestyle has gone up too since I've gotten out of the sedentary job. My macros are at 40% carb and 30/30 protein ans fat. I am eating mostly clean. I'm praying my body is holding onto it for some Eason and I'll see a big whoosh any day? Oh I hope so. It's taught me a lesson tho- to never take for granted myetsbolism I had before and how easy it was to lose :/

Sorry for the poor spelling. I'm on my phone and it autocorrects! Lol

Funny enough i've been going through the same thing! And same thought running through my head. I just turned 25 back in January and since mid january (when I started restricting again) I didn't see the whooosh that I normally get. It's taken me 3 weeks to really see any change in the scale at all and that was after TOM arrived. I'd say i've lost about 3lbs since starting where as in the past I would have easily lost 9 or 10lbs.
I really had to work not to be discouraged as for me the whoosh helps so much with my motivation. But I guess I just have to be happy with the 1lb a week avg and sit in for the long slog.
Stick with it, if you are sticking to your calories there is no way you can't be losing, just be patient, it'll show through soon. Goodluck

Not that I'm a great example right now since I've climbed back up to my highest weight...

But I can assure you that I've been through this before. I honestly hit a point where I plateaued for a LOOOONG period of time and was appalled.
Was this it? As good as I could get eating 1,200-1,400 calories a day? I mean, eating so well, and going for runs every other day, and I was STUCK? Stuck at 145??? Did I have to eat LESS, and workout MORE? I was already killing myself!!!
That wasn't it. It was just a plateau, and I got past it.

Here's what I've learned rephrased into my own perception of the body science articles I've read: Your body doesn't like to drop off tonnes of weight. Your survival instincts are geared towards keeping enough fat and energy to keep you alive, and when you start dropping weight, your body is going to do its damnedest to stabilize that weight back out, concerned you're not getting enough food, and that it needs to store that energy up for you. (This happens more frequently when you engage in starvation diets... less than 1,100 calories every day) But even when you're just eating low-calorie, your body is trying to stabilize things, and it results in the occasional plateau.

Since we have no idea what your methods are, it's a bit hard to give specific advice. But perhaps, because your body is getting used to the tried and true methods you've used in the past, it might not be a bad idea to switch them up a little to shock the system a bit. I don't mean a massively different diet, but... maybe if you're a calorie counter, change the source of your calories. Keep the calories the same, but incorporate in more lean protein. If you're a cardio-freak, drop 20 minutes of one of your runs to focus on muscle-building/toning. (Lean muscle burns fat, and is incredibly helpful in weight loss!)

Feel free to let us know what your exact plan is, and the ladies here are amazing with suggestions!

Ali Wow thats crazy we are going through the same thing! Do you think we just aren't seeing the initial whoosh because we didnt have water weight to lose? I just can't seem to accept or believe that just in 6 months my metabolism could have changed THAT much. Also, I feel like my metabolism hasn't changed because I eat ALLL day long, small healthy meals with lots of protein and I still get hungry about every 2 hours! So my metabolism has to be going otherwise I wouldn't feel hungry often lol Thanks for sharing your experience. I am hoping to see a "whoosh" soon

Jelb Thank you SOOOO much for taking the time to explain all of that to me. I just feel like I know my body well enough. But maybe it is starting to get used to it. But I cant see how thats possible considering I dont stay on plan consistently. I mess up about once a week ( I did that a lot when I was losing too), and even though they are "mess ups" it helped to keep my body from hitting a plateau or getting comfortable. And I can't say Im at a plateau because that happens after youve been dieting awhile and have lost some weight already. I am just starting out again after regaining. So it technically isn't my last 10 pounds, its just the first. Kind of get what I'm saying? Hard to explain.. Anyways, to help you understand better what I'm doing below is what I eat and a typical week for me calorie and exercise wise..

About 4-5 days a week I eat 1300 calories. 1 day a week I eat at maintenance (2000) and the 7th day I eat around 1300-1500 calories. Ive been doing this for about 2 weeks now.

On the 1300 calorie days (which is most days of the week) this is my exact meal plan.

Breakfast: 2 egg whites, 1 whole egg and whole grain toast
Snack 1: Light string cheese with .5 ounce of whole almonds
Lunch: Sandwich (whole grain ezekiel toast, publix ham and laughing cow cheese wedge) and grapes
Snack 2: .5 ounces of whole almonds and whole grain toast
Dinner: Grilled chicken mixed in .25 cup of organic cream of mushroom, mixed with peas. And whole grain toast with laughing cow cheese.

These are my totals: Calories - 1296 Fat - 47 Carbs - 120 Protein - 102 Fiber - 21

I run 4 days and week. The 3 days I dont run are the days I am on my feet for 8 hours in the hospital.

What do you think?

Hey, not too shabby on the diet-front! It looks like a very very healthy mixture of foods, and I'm very impressed. It's a lot easier to help someone when they're totally pigging out, but I'll still take a shot.

Remember, these are ONLY suggestions, and you can take them or leave them. But they're what I would do to see the scale move.

While I don't subscribe to the "carbs are the devil" mentality, I think that slightly lowering the intake for a period of time can help to boost the initial weight loss. I would suggest that for just ONE WEEK, you try taking the whole grain toast out of your breakfast and your afternoon snack.

Replace with a different kind of carb: Apples and berries, fat-free milk with a bit of protein powder, etc. Or better yet, for breakfast, scrap the carb altogether. Fry yourself up two (or three) slices of turkey bacon instead - 70 calories, and yummy like you wouldn't believe.
For the afternoon snack, I might hesitate to have almonds a second time that day... they're high-fat despite being protein-rich, and you could probably get way more protein from a cup of lentil soup. Roughly 3 grams of protein for the almonds, and 10 for a cup of lentil soup! Or, I'd sub in some asininely low-calorie fruit, like blueberries. You can eat a tonne of them for shockingly low calories.

And lastly, I'd just assume that you've been getting low-fat organic cream of mushroom soup? Another option is to try grilling the chicken in with low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth. I'm telling you, it's super yummy, very flavourful, and basically no calories. It's like 20 calories for a cup or something insane like that... and doesn't have the fat that the creamy ones do.

Again, it looks like you've been doing a really good job of making meals that are very balanced between fats, carbs and proteins, which is great! And once you've got the scale moving in the right direction, I wouldn't hesitate to move back to that exact menu (maybe minus one slice of toast, just to keep the scale moving!).

Good luck, and let us know how things go!

I agree about mixing up your carb sources.

Try ditching the grains for a week or two and replacing them with berries.

You'll power through it!

You are too sweet!! Thank you for caring so much! I have eliminated my whole grain toast with fruit before. I am a HUGE fruit person. If I could, I would live off of just fruit. But sadly, I have noticed when I do that, my cravings ARE OFF THE WALL. My body apparently doesn't do very well with any types of sugar. So that is why I eat my toast. It lets me look forward to something, keeps my sugar down and my carbs are at a good place even with 5 slices of toast a day. Not to mention all the fiber I am getting from them I appreciate the suggestion but unfortunately I have already tried that :/

As for the cream of mushroom, I only eat about 1/4 a serving. So that only makes the fat intake for that 2g and the sodium is only at 200mg. A little high but not too bad.

You are such a doll for really trying to help me. I really appreciate it. But I think I just need to stick it out and wait for my body to get past this weird phase its going through. It could be a number of things so I will just be patient. But you have made me more confident that my diet is good and it's nothing I am doing. So thank you again!!

Just wanted to give you girls an update! I had my "whoosh" today! Went from 137.2 to 134.4! I am so glad I stuck it out. Thanks for all of your support and for anyone who is going through the same thing, KEEP IT UP! It does work. Where I calculated I "should be" with the calories I have been eating, is exactly where the scale put me at today! Yay!

Awesome Dianne! Did your measurements go down too? It just is weird how your body can drop it all at once. I still don't get how that works. Anybody have any interesting articles about that? Haha.

I am sort of hoping for the same. I am not perfect on my diet but I am definately using more cals than I am eating.

Yay! congrats!
Must have been water weight, possibly caused by your exercise/job change. I've found that too, i've started to see more movement on the scale, hardly a whoosh but it's SOMETHING.

Philana No I have not measured but I highly doubt they went down. Its only been 2 weeks. I think the whoosh was mostly water but it was still good to see. lol Stick with it, you will see a whoosh if you arent seeing a loss and you are doing all the right things!

Ali Thats too funny. Our bodies must be on the same schedule. Must be a 25 year old thing

i just saw that you finally had a woosh! congrats!
still thought i'd put in my two cents though... lol.

this happened to me last summer. same exact thing. was dieting last year from fall 2010 to january/feb 2011 and then stalled and then gained a bunch back... i've yo-yoed a lot in the past, and then, when i tried to start again in July, i was doing all the same things that had worked so well in the past and the scale didn't move for two whole months. i got so depressed. i eventually and accidentally found out about "the four hour body" diet (i got a sample for the book on kindle, then i bought it cuz i thought the guy was funny) and tried it out and it really worked for me! i think being really aware of what goes into your body (not just the amount of calories) helps a lot, especially in a situation like ours... everybody's metabolism is different and some people just need harsher rules to lose weight... i would suggest try something new, in term of diets... something like Atkins might work well too...

good luck!