For the last month or two, despite my best efforts, I have seen no love from the scale. 118, almost every single time. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

My typical diet and exercise routine goes something like this: 1650-1900 calories a day (average is ~1800) of mostly healthy, pescetarian food, and at least an hour of solid cardio (biking at vigorous speed or jogging) at least 5 days per week. I also do a fasted-state cardio session 4 days out of the week, which is something I thought would be a "magic bullet" -- not so, in terms of weight loss, although my stamina is much improved. That works out to several double-sessions in a week of working out, alongside the mentioned calorie counts.

My BMR should be somewhere between 2100-2300/day. Given this, I should be losing approximately a pound a week. I do do a cheat meal, which consists of dinner and drinks with my co-workers on Sunday nights. I count the calories from that, too, and they can get pretty high -- but not high enough to "undo" more than a day or two of good progress.

I don't consume dairy very much, and I recently cut out bread, getting my carbs from whole sources like brown rice, cornmeal, etc. The latter has had noticeably beneficial effects on my digestion -- TMI, perhaps, but I'm now clockwork-regular after this. Still, there has been no change to the number on the scale.

I'm not sure what else I can modify in my routine. I'd love to get back into the long-distance running I was doing through last summer and fall that let me weigh 110 pounds, but we've been having wicked dust-storms this week.

What else I can possibly change; what else can I try? Does anyone have any suggestions, or good plateau-busting tips? I'd like to be down 5 pounds in about a month and a half. This is mightily discouraging.

It sounds like you have a very active lifestyle if you eat that many calories? My lifestyle isnt active and with my weight my 'high' number is 1650, only on exercise days. The rest of the time I eat 1400. So maybe look at your calories again to make sure you are at a deficit?

Another thing is I was stuck for about 6 weeks last month, then it started to move slowly, and then when I took about 4 days off exercise I all at once dropped like 3lbs. So how are your exercise breaks?

To me what made the scale move is being more diligent on my calories (I actually upped them from 1200 to 1400-1600 and it broke the stall) and taking sufficient exercise breaks.

If you are 118 pounds at 5'3, how much more do you expect to lose? To be honest, you'll have a hard time losing much more weight without getting very strict with your regimine. It may have to come down to cutting down on your daily calories, cutting out your "cheat meal", adding more HIIT workouts, lifting harder (do you lift weights? This has been the KEY for me)

I wish I could say that you can be super lean and have your weekly cheats, but you probably can't. As a fitness model/bikini competitor I can tell you that in order to get those last few pounds off, most of the time I really have to dial it in and just "embrace the suck". Do you want a weight you can maintain comfortably, or do you want to be super lean?

Suggestions:

include omega 3's and other healthy fat daily
eliminate cornmeal
add 1c greek yogurt (aids in regularity)
focus on veggies (cover 2/3 plate)
include protein daily
limit/eliminate rice

ETA: I hope my suggestions weren't received as criticisms. Those are just some things I've felt have been helpful on my journey so far. God bless.

philana: I've done an exercise break before and had really good results from it, but I did it when I was feeling sluggish with my running. Presently, I'm feeling pretty good, but I won't forget to add one in in the next month or so, as it's been a long time!

JossFit: I keep trying to remember exactly what it was I was doing that allowed me to be so lean last summer. You're right about the cheat days -- I remember now that I didn't permit myself to cheat during the heat of my diet. This wasn't terribly difficult, and I actually don't mind cutting out the dinner/drinks, or at least constraining them to fit within my calorie goals. I'm tired of feeling bloated and guilty after overdoing it, like I'm going to have to work that dinner off for at least two days.

Also, yes, I should definitely start doing HIIT sessions. I can think of a great place to do them: the university track next door. As to lifting, I do have a gym membership at the same uni. I can never commit to lifting routines (always been a runner or biker)but if you say it's made a world of difference, then I'll definitely buckle down! What kinds of workouts/frequencies do you recommend?