healthier, but STUCK!!!

I have been in the gym 6 days/wk, and eating healthy (1000-1500 cal/day) for about 3 months now. I feel great! In fact, my workouts are starting to feel easy, so I have to turn up the heat. But I've only lost 3 lbs. Am I missing something??

Theoretically, someone my size should only expect to lose 1/2 lb. each week, so 3 lbs. equals six weeks. Is that normal?? ...other ppl on CC are making much more progress.

I was an athlete most of life, and I know that I need a LOT of physical activity to feel stressed. Should I do more??

 Depends on what you're doing in the gym, mostly. And your diet - you seem to be significantly undereating for your activity level, which has several negative implications for fat loss.

 There's also the question of how you're doing on the inches lost front. Scale weight is irrelevant, really, when we're discussing body composition goals. You may be doing better than you think, if you get out the measuring tape and judge the fit of your clothes.

Thanks for the advice.

My workout usually consists of cardio and strength training by circuit training, or I'll go to martial arts class. As far as my caloric intake, everything I read says that I should be eating 1500 calories/day with exercise for weight loss. I guess I should just be patient.

I know what you mean on this. Everything I find says to eat 1487 cals, but then everyone says "that's not enough!".

It's definitely confusing.

From what I understand, that's x amount of calories, if you aren't doing any exercise.  I'm "supposed" to eat 1350 calories for weight loss, but my activity is generally sedentary.  If I exercise, that burns some of the calories I ate... so if I ate 1350 calories in a day, and then burned off 200 walking the dog, then really all I ate is 1150 calories, which isn't enough. 

Your caloric intake should be the total of what you ate, minus what you burned off.  Not just what you ate.

 

Original Post by krzylittlecara:

I know what you mean on this. Everything I find says to eat 1487 cals, but then everyone says "that's not enough!".

It's definitely confusing.

 I believe what melkor was referring to was the range of 1000 to 1500. If you're hitting 1500 consistently, you're probably fine. But if it's more often on the side of 1000, you are likely significantly undereating as melkor said.

Like Melkor said, get the measuring tape out and see if you are losing inches. For about 3 months my weight didn't go anywhere, BUT my mother keeps a journal on her and I on our inches. I was telling my mother how I was getting discourage because I wasn't losing weight. She got her measuring tape out and told me, you might not be losing weight but you are losing inches. I felt good considering what my measurements were to begin with.  Don't get discouraged! If I can do it anyone can.  For example, I have been stuck at 155 pounds for about a year, BUT My hips were 45 inches and now they are 38!

I hope you guys are right because I'm more conscious of what I eat than my friends, and I workout harder than they do, but they're achieving results they want. I am pretty much stationary. I guess this is what a plateau is.

Thanks for the advice. I definitely need to do some measuring.