[lemonthyme]

I need some help and perhaps something to keep me focused on the positives. I am in my 40s, trying to lose weight. I have been going to move the body 3 to 4 times a week an hour at a time (45 on recumbent bike/crosstrainer depending on the day and then weights to fill up the 15 mins). I am working with a lower carb meal plan and also started keeping track of calories, because though I may be watching carbs, I found those calories can sneak out of place.

That said: I am wondering since my scale has been stuck all week if at this stage in life I will see my body reshape before I will see the scale move? I measure once a week and I have lost 1/4" - 1" in various places like my waist and left thigh. I know, you don't always hit the same spot twice on measuring, so I acknowledge this as I write down my new measurements and am not jumping up and down w/ 1/8" loss. I'm just curious if this is something more common than not? I'd really like to see the scale move, I even had my two year old stand on it in between me to see if well, it was stuck. No such luck. He still weighs 35 lbs and I still am 249.2.

Also, in general - does having two cups of coffee in the morning 1/2 decaf w/a tablespoon of 1% milk become a deterrent to loosing weight? If so, maybe that's another area I need to stop. And yes I do capture the calories for this as well.

TIA!

[Scotsgal]

Hay Tia!

I can't give you any sort of resolution here but what I will say is that a good few years back when I was very much involved with Curves Gym, I went 4 times a week and made sure I was the person to take the dog her walk on my off days. I was on a very low calorie diet and I drank lots of water and never any soda. Sometimes I would have Tea but it was not a regular thing. After loosing around 20lbs I plateaued badly. I upped my calories a bit in order to help my motabolism recover from the low cal diet, then jumped back down and the scale would not move, I worked extra extra hard in the gym and the scale again did not move, infact it started going up. After about 3 weeks of trying to adjust various methods I litterally give up! I stoped the gym and I felt completely defeated. But I was young, I was 19 and I didnt realise that the reason I was putting on the weight was because I was gaining so much Muscle from my work outs, and I was not allowing my body to recover from the low calorie bursts.

But during that plataeu, do you know what I was getting? A huge loss in Inches. During that month where I lost ZILCH in weight, I lost around 8inches of fat around my body.

The coffee you are having will not deter your diet. Are what amount of calories are you eating? If it is under 1400 then why dont you try a week where you gain a few pounds, then jump back down onto a low calorie for a week, that really should help the lbs drop (including the ones you have gained over the previous week).

Just dont worry about it! Inches class as a great loss as well. Everyone will hit a wall at somepoint, you just need to work around it to kick start the weight loss again.

[LesGetFit]

The exercise may be the reason for no pounds lost. You are building muscle. Just hang in there. The scale will show you a change very soon. The coffee is not an issue, I drink mine with sugar and half and half everyday and I have definitely seen some losses. Just keep doing exactly what you're doing!