I'm falling off the stupid wagon again!

I'm not working out as much as I should, and I'm snacking a little at night. I try to keep my meals healthy, I've only been eating wraps with grilled chicken or turkey and I've cut cheese almost completely out of my diet, but I'm not losing any weight.

It would be different if I was losing a pound a week or something, but nothing. And it gets so frustrating, and now that I don't have a boyfriend around to talk to late at night I get bored and even more frustrated and than I just snack. I mean I guess eating healthy snacks is better than the junk I was eating before, but still.. ugh i just feel so frustrated and exhausted.

i thought this time was going to be different but its not! Nothings changing! What am I supposed to do! I'm so done with this! Why Isn't anything happening!?

Calmly now ... tell us how long it took you to lose those first 9 lbs and how long you've been without any weight loss.

I lost the first nine pounds in 2 and a half weeks. And I know a lot of that is water so I expect that I lost about 4 pounds of weight. And in the last week and a half... nothing! Which is weird because i started exercising a week and a half ago

Oh a week and a half is soooo short! When is your period?

That's why you seem to be stalling a little, when you first start exercising or exercising new muscle groups, your muscles puff up a bit with water, so you will still be getting rid of fat but it won't be showing on the scales because of this slight puffing.

I was moaning about the shape of my butt to a personal trainer friend yesterday, who showed me a few lower body exercises I could do, we were doing this for an hour at the most, today my butt hurts and I'm up two pounds. I haven't deviated in anyway from my plan, my period isn't due, they only reason can be is that my muscles are holding onto extra water.

Drink lots of water and get yourself a measuring tape. All the way through my weight loss there have been periods when I've got lighter and phases when I've got smaller, they haven't always happened at the same time.

And very well done on the 9lbs loss, don't let your frustration stop you from building on it.

Same thing happend to me- I didn't lose anything and in fact gained about 3 pounds the first couple weeks of working out. After that, things fell into place and I lose steady now, sometimes .5 pound and sometimes 2 pounds but always somewhere in between so I'd say you have a lot to look forward to girl, hang in there and you WILL see results!

ah you guys just made me feel SO relieved. I took my first go on a spinning machine the other day and i have never been so sore after the gym- i could barely walk down stairs! haha. phew! ah you dont even know. cuz my first thought was the same as susans but I know I couldn't be bloated or anything.

Thanks again, I can sleep so much easier!

This time CAN be different. No one said it was going to be easy, but if you stick with it, I guarantee it will be worth all of the hard work and sacrifice. You COULD fall off the wagon and give up today... OR you COULD keep going and see results soon. A week and a half is hardly enough time to give up. I agree that you are probably holding on to water weight. Also, if you dont already do so, I would write down EVERYTHING you put into your mouth. This includes bites, licks, and tastes ... AND WATER.

The measure of success isn't week to week. You need to learn to take a much longer-term view.

Or, to put it another way, you didn't get fat in a week, or even a month - you won't lose it in a week or a month either. Trust your plan.

Give yourself time - develop a consistent eating and exercising routine, watch the patterns that emerge in your numbers on the scale, feel your body responding to what you are doing.

For me: My fluid swings are as much as 4 lbs, and come and go depending upon whether I've exercised, how much salty food I've eaten, whether I'm drinking enough water, whether my period is coming, etc. All of this means I can have a perfect week food-wise and exercise-wise, and *still* show a weight gain - even a substantial one - for the week, if the numbers work out against me.

I weigh myself every day (this drives some people insane but I have to do it in order to learn the patterns) but I don't evaluate the success of what I'm doing except by looking back at least a month.

Oh, one more comment to Ericabauw - your "I'm not working out as much as I should" sounds like something I would say.

I sometimes feel if I can't do something perfectly I shouldn't bother doing it at all. This is a personality flaw of mine.

I don't know if you're suffering from the same thought pattern - but please try to remember that any exercise is better than no exercise. There is no "working out as much as I should" - there is working out when you can, and planning ahead and arranging your schedule so that you can more often. But if you only made it to the gym once last week (for example), don't call that "falling off the wagon" - call it going to the gym one time more than you would have if you were off the wagon. And see if you can't go twice this week.