..........

It can take several weeks to see a shift in the scale, for some it can take a month or more. What you are doing is great, but to see the results, it will take much longer than a few days. Keep at it!

Patience is a virtue! It sucks, but that's one of the keys to the game.

I think there is this assumption that your body immediately reacts to any changes. That's not necessarily true. Why do we assume that the cupcake we ate at 10pm the night before explains the 1 pound weight gain the next morning? Your body has to digest it and then store or expel it - that is not a 5 minute operation. Chances are your weight may still be a result of your eating a couple of days ago and the changes you are making now will show up in a couple more days.

Sometimes exercise can cause temporary weight gain due to water retention, etc. If you keep it up and are eating well too, then don't worry - the weight WILL come off... just be patient!

You also might be consuming too little now that you are burning an additional 500 calories? How many calories are you eating a day?

You've only added the exercise for a few days, right? That is simply not enough time to see the difference.

Your body will take a week or two - perhaps longer - to adjust to a big change in the workload you give it. Try to be a little more patient, keep the exercise up for a month, and then see how your weight loss is.

The time scale for this process is just longer than several days. No way around that.

Your body isn't going to defy physics - give it a lot more time, keep the right calories, and it will work. Either you aren't giving it enough time (a few days is nothing - it can take weeks, MONTHS, to see solid results) or perhaps you are eating more. But it will happen.

There is at least one logical explanation for why exercising heavily over the past few days has created a "stick" on the scale: water retention.

What happens when you get a bruise, strain, or bump? The tissue in the immediate area swells with fluid as part of your body's "repair kit." What happens when you work out? You often get sore because you're creating micro-tears in your muscle fiber (don't worry, that's not a bad thing, it's part of the building process that gives you strength). All those little micro-tears mean your body's going to divert some fluid to the area, meaning that a few days of heavy exercise often reads as more poundage on the scale.

We can't control what our bodies do; we can only control what we put into our bodies and the amount of work we get out of them. Focusing solely on results--especially when those results are condensed into one number which may or may not represent fat loss--sometimes leads to disappointment over stuff we can't control.

Try focusing on the things you DO control: staying with your plan, being patient, being realistic about your goals, exercising for greater health instead of just as a means to weight loss. Focus on the "NSVs"--non-scale victories--like fitting better in your clothes, walking farther, lifting more weight, finding a new food you like.

Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. Looking at the results of a few days' changes is like saying that you'll never be able to finish all 26 miles because you can only see three blocks ahead.

Well, I wish you luck with your weight loss journey but a little bit more patience will go a long way because when you start to lose more and head closer to goal, it's not going to happen as fast. Plateaus occur, you may even gain one week, lose a little the next - or none at all at times.

The difference between the maintainers and the ones who are endlessly in a cycle of gain, lose, gain, quit is one thing - patience and acceptance that there will be highs & lows in the journey. I've been around 3FC for a while and I maintained for 6 years - without patience, it does NOT happen.

We can ALL totally understand your frustration but you seem awfuly defensive with every explanation given to you. Why? You gain some weight when you introduce exercise...it happens. You don't have to exercise if you don't want to but frankly why would you STOP? You said yourself you wanted to be healthier and have a stronger healthier heart...isn't that worth waiting a few weeks for your poor body to adjust to the new activity? Seriously...what good is being thin if the first time you fall you break a hip or worse?

My vote? Have patience and CONTINUE to exercise...but in the end it's your call...we'll all be here to help motivate you.

Good luck

I empathize with you.
I have been working out at the gym 3 times a week (with all my heart) for an hour with a personal trainer. I have not seen the scale go down at all. (3 weeks in a row...)
However, today I did the buttons up on a shirt that I have not worn in a year. You will get confirmation that you are shrinking
I am taking a leap of faith. It is my heartfelt desire to get this weight off, but in the end the exercise will matter- it will help your metabolism, your energy and your weight loss.
It is counter intuitive to keep exercising when the reward is so delayed- it is almost scarey. I wish you luck- please update us when the scale finally drops

Why choose not to exercise instead of continuing to exercise, then seeing where you stand in a month once your body's adjusted to a higher activity level? You may have a week or so of being stuck, but as your body adjusts (and as your mind adjusts to seeing the same annoying number for a week ), you'll lose more rapidly with exercise than without it.

Burning more calories equals losing more fat. That equation is as much of a sure thing as Pythagoras's theorem. It may not always look like you're burning more weight in the short term, but you'll definitely burn more fat.

I know it's hard to hear, but she's right.

I was saying all the same things when I came here. I was broken. There was something wrong with me. I could lose weight with diet but exercise stalled me out. I wasn't like other women. I packed on muscle like no tomorrow.

I was wrong.

Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. Exercise because it is good for you. Know that when you lose weight as much as 40% of what you lose could be muscle instead of fat. Lift weights to RETAIN muscle. That equation right there explains why adding exercise messes with the scale, at least in my mind. To me, the scale slows down about 40% because I'm losing FAT, not muscle. I'm ok with that. But I had to research that and fully understand that before I could accept it.

And that recommended 1-2 pounds per week is utter hogwash. I prefer to recommend 4-8 pounds per month. It's the same thing but far more accurate! Some of us do lose routine 1-2 pounds every week, but very, very few of us. I have a tendency to lose big in one week and stall the other three. I started weighing daily and have been tracking daily weight loss for a good nine months or so and have a really good record of my body doing this.

Take heart, pull up some patience and settle in for a the long haul. Keep exercising! It's so good for you! But the scale does not accurately reflect what you are doing here and now. It's the trend you want.

So you are eating 1000 calories a day AND exercising? That's why it's stopped. If you are going to exercise I'd add more calories- you already shouldn't be hitting under 1200 calories and you weigh 255- you could probably exercise and eat 1800 calories a day and still lose.

Remember it's not always about eating as little as possible, your body needs to get enough nutrients and calories to want to let go of the fat.