I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've been sticking to exercising; going to the gym 3 - 4x every week since August 23rd. That's right, tomorrow I turn a month of going to the gym!

I started at 200, went down to 190 by Sept 8, and today it was weighing time again and I'm still at 190 lbs. I'd swore I could have lost a few lbs between Sept. 8 and now.

Should I be concern?

I blame it on my fast food consumption. I swore I wasn't going to eat fast food at all, but it's hard when you're barely at home and always on the go. I reduced fast food to small portions and I count my calories everyday.

How many calories do you take in each day?

Generally it falls between 1200 - 1500 per day.

I distinctly remember once working out feverishly for 8 weeks with a freaking trainer and losing 2lbs - I was 185 to 183 in 8 weeks. Wanted to cry.

Thankfully trainer insisted on measurements....had lost a total of like 12 inches all over.

Lesson learned - the scale is only 1 tool...use some new ones in addition to the scale:
- measurements
- food journal with calorie tracking
- learn fast food menus inside and out if you think you *have* to eat it....it is all bad, some is worse than others. consider other options: 7-11 sells yogurt, fruit, bars (luna, cliff, etc), nuts, etc.

Your body needs better food that fast food. To stay in you calories with it you can't be getting proper nutrition and it will make your body hang on to every pound. Plan ahead and take your food with you. We are all busy but don't rely on fast food.

It's only been two weeks since September 8. Give it time.

It's typical to lose about a pound of fat a week - that's a healthy rate. But water weight fluctuations due to exercise, salt, hydration, hormones, and many other factors can be as much as 4lbs or more! For me, it's very typical for a few weeks of real loss to be masked by such fluctuations. Fast food is very salty, so if you are eating some of that, you may indeed be retaining fluid and masking real weight loss.

It becomes necessary to take a longer view than one week or two. If you see no loss for 4 or 6 weeks or more, then it may be time to start evaluating your program. Two weeks is really not enough to tell whether what you are doing is working.

Don't be so had on yourself so soon. It all takes time. Give it some more time make sure your eating healthy and getting some excer in there

All food is not created equal! For as little calories as you're eating (I go about 1300/day myself) you really need to make every bite count. Even if it means packing a whole day's worth of food to bring with. What you're eating, in my opinion, usually matters more than how much. Empty calories just plain old don't do anything for you, most of the calories come from fat, or refined carbohydrates, or sugar. No bueno!

I second the various methods tracking losses. For example, when I started out, I did the 30DS (J. Michaels) and lost maybe 3lbs in 6 weeks. I was pretty peeved, but I knew I could see a difference, so I went out and bought a tailor's tape and started measuring and weighing. I found a picture from the beginning and compared it with one I took and the difference was pretty darn noticable! A pound of muscle does not weigh less than a pound of fat. A pound is a pound, but a pound of muscle takes up much less space than a pound of fat.

Did you go from 200 to 190 between Aug 23 and Sept 8? And then stay steady since then?

That initial whoosh was almost undoubtedly not all "weight." Losing 10 lbs in 2 weeks is quite unlikely unless you're working out Biggest Loser Style (as in, 8 hours a day).

Your initial loss was probably some water weight, and now that's evened out. Ten pounds in one month is awesome, and I bet if you stick to plan, over the next week or so you will see more movement on the scale.

I pack my breakfast, snacks and lunch every morning in 10 minutes or less. 2 sandwiches, Yes, I eat sandwich for breakfast. Anyway, 2 sandwiches, turkey, lettuce, always fresh spinach, or tuna or chicken salad made with ff mayo, carrots, fruit, yogurt, some ff ranch for dip and sometimes a bit of peanut butter to eat with an apple, and 100 cal microwave popcorn. Once in a while I switch up the sandwich and do a turkey bacon, lettuce and tomato, yum.



Looking forward to winter and making big pots of healthy soup to toss into thermos to dip my sandwich in.

10lbs in 2 weeks must have been such a delight to see! but to your body it's oMG, I'm going to starve! and bodies are really good at hanging onto water in the fat cells to try and keep its weight up. Basically, your loss is running at 10lbs a month, and that's a fantastic total.

Maybe you've got 2 options scales wise:
weigh once a month ~ I bet if you'd only weighed once, you'd be over the moon to have lost 10lbs that month! I certainly would have been!
or
get used to weighing daily. For the first time, I'm doing that, and it's really helping. Some days it's down, some days it's unaccountably up, sometimes it's the same YET AGAIN GRR ~ but it's teaching me just to observe my weight loss, not to get too hung up on the scales reading.