Originally Posted by Arctic Mama:
Consistency with your calories and exercise, folks! That's the key. If you have been on point without overages on your calories for two or three months and aren't losing, then we may have an issue. But slightly slow losses over the course of a few days or weeks? That's NORMAL. We aren't machines or mathematical equations, energy expenditure by our bodies can vary wildly depending on our intake, outflow, efficiency of digestion, you name it.

I needed to hear this today! Thank you!

Originally Posted by JohnP:
How tall are you?

As I'm sure you know the more you have to lose the easier it is to lose. 2 lbs a week might not be realistic.

I'm 5'10". I think my exercise regime has been lacking of late. I used to ride the exercise bike 45 min. a day. I've lately just gone bike-riding for about 20 minutes, hence my desire to up that amount.

In the past four days or so I've kept my calories to no more than 1600/day. I also walked about a bazillion miles Saturday at Disney World. And since Saturday I put on two pounds as of this morning. :?: I would be really, really discouraged if not for the fact that I saw a drop in the tape measure this morning. The two pounds are probably due to water-weight, but still, seeing the jump back into the hated 190s again made me want to scream. I've been stuck there forever. It's my purgatory.

I don't think losing a pound a week is ridiculous. I think you'll have weeks when you'll lose nothing and weeks when you'll lose more than a pound. You just have to stick to it and if you feel like you're not losing fast enough, change your weigh ins interval (perhaps twice a month would be better?).

Originally Posted by tricon7:
I'm 5'10". I think my exercise regime has been lacking of late. I used to ride the exercise bike 45 min. a day. I've lately just gone bike-riding for about 20 minutes, hence my desire to up that amount.

Ah, I see. That could easily explain your weight loss tailing off then. Has its slowing coincided with the change in exercise?

The thing with a normal bike is you can coast along, not pedalling constantly. A lot of the bike's motion comes from its momentum rather than your muscles. You've not just halved the time, you may well have halved your energy expenditure in that time too. You're still doing fantastic losing a pound a week, as everyone else has said. And it looks like you know what to do if you want to speed things up a bit more. The question is, do you really want to lose weight faster? I've seen a lot of people round here saying when they've lost weight fast it's gone straight back on, but when they've lost it slowly it's stayed off. That's definitely worth bearing in mind. Good luck however you decide to tinker with your workout.

how bout switching it up. Like maybe the juice diet. Of course, I don't have that big expensive juicer, but my husband and I did it for 4 days on store bought Naked Juice (Green machine) and Bolthouse Green goodness. Just make sure you're taking in enough, but not TOO MUCH calories with the juice. I diluted mine. It was actually very filling and I kept up my intense workouts during, and lost 8 pounds. When I was done, obviously, I gained a couple back, but the juice thing got me on track again after cinco de mayo cheating .. Good luck and whatever you do, just stick to a plan and I promise, you'll be fine :)

Originally Posted by tricon7:
I'm 5'10". I think my exercise regime has been lacking of late. I used to ride the exercise bike 45 min. a day. I've lately just gone bike-riding for about 20 minutes, hence my desire to up that amount.

2lbs a week would be pretty tough at your current height and weight but it would seem likely that at 5'10" you could drop a lb a week pretty easily but obviously that is not the case. Just have faith that if you stick with restricting calories your body will use the fat for energy.

I have suggested it before but I can't remember if you said you had or had not started weight lifting?

Originally Posted by JohnP:
2lbs a week would be pretty tough at your current height and weight but it would seem likely that at 5'10" you could drop a lb a week pretty easily but obviously that is not the case. Just have faith that if you stick with restricting calories your body will use the fat for energy.

I have suggested it before but I can't remember if you said you had or had not started weight lifting?

I have started back lifting some weights, but that's since my weight loss has stalled, unfortunately. My wife likes to make dishes in which it's difficult to determine what their calories are - like chicken quesadillas, burritos, lasana, etc. For the next while I think I'm going to just stick to my grilled/baked chicken, since it can easily be weighed and quantified. I may have been undercounting the calories in some of those dishes.

It's true that I'm probably expending far less calories biking in the neighborhood than I do on the exercise bike. Time to get back on that thing. It's really easy to do when I can watch Netflix on the iPad while I bike.