Am I being too impatient?

OK, so here's the deal... I'm 24 years old, 5.5, 166lbs and I want to be 135. I started dieting at the beginning of January and lost about 10lbs (I start at 178lbs). Then in February I started working out 3 days a week at first and now I am up to 4 or 5 days a week (at least 4miles total between treadmill & elliptical + I lift weights 2 days a week... not really strenuous weight training though); since I began my workout regime(5 weeks ago now)I have only lost 1 or 2 more lbs. Is this normal? I feel like I should have downsized a bit more. If it were only the weight I wouldn't be concerned, but I haven't really gotten any smaller either. I am still watching my nutrition; no fast food, eating lots of fruits and veggies, eating/drinking a couple of servings of dairy per day, eating lean meats, etc. but I don't know if I am doing this right. I find myself having a hard time eating much more than 1200 cal a day with me eating all the fruits and veggies... they don't add up to much and I feel like I'm eating all the time! If anyone has advice, please help!

You're not eating enough to support your increased exercise. According to the BMR Calculator (here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ ), your BMR is 1570. You should eat at least this--I know it sounds like a lot, but it's what your body needs to survive. The days that you're exercising you should probably shoot for around 1700.

The reason you're not losing much anymore is because you're not eating enough to compensate for your new workout regime, and your body is resisting weight loss because it thinks it's "starving." (sorry to be redundant if you've heard all this before!)

If I were you, I would just bump my intake up to about 1500-1600 on the days you do work out. If you're skeptical/worried about this, just try it for ONE week and I'm sure you'll see great results!

And if you really have a hard time eating more than 1200 (I wish I had that problem!), try eating more calorie-dense foods like nuts, avocados, peanut butter, etc!

I agree with the previous posters; you are not eating enough calories for your new exercise regimen. Try upping your calorie intake an extra 200 cals or so per day and see if that helps. An extra serving of dairy or lean meat per day would probably help push your cals up a bit.

Everyone is different so its hard to compare :) But i have been losing weight for a year now, and Im about 80 lbs down and work out about 5 days a week too, I know it can be sooo frustrating when you're not seeing the "fruits of your labor" I'm not sure if you are already, but some great advice that really helped me was to always have at LEAST 3-5 OZ of lean protein at every meal and snack. That protein is like gas to a flame (your metabolism) the fruits and veggies are fantastic for filling you up without a lot of fat or calories, but they arent going to "sustain" your metabolism like protein will, i.e. a 1 oz piece of reduced fat cheese, veggies with some reduced fat peanut butter, and of course your meats, even low sodium lunch meats are great.

What I found was that I was following the book, like you sound like you're doing (which is fantastic!) but I ran into a wall because I was working out so much, and my body didnt have enough "fuel" i was going on fruits, veggies, a maybe a little meat, but when you're working out that hard and there isnt enough protien the body goes into "starvation mode" even though you feel like you're eating all the time, its stuff thats not "sticking" with you, so when the body goes to burn of fat, the body basically says "no way Im storing this energy,because i dont get a lot and i dont know the next time i'll get it again". Once I started following the protein at every meal advice, the weight just started FALLING off. It wasnt what I was doing (ie eating the wrong foods, etc) it was what i wasnt doing, like feeding my body the fuel it needed.

I hope this helps and I wish you lots of success and pounds shed :) I didnt mean for this to get that long lol! Take care!