This is unbeliavable!!!

I am not loosing weight nor fitting in my clothes better for almost 2 months now...it is sooooo annyoing.Is this a plateau or I am getting this all wrong????I upped my calories and I work out 5 times a week,I did not count for like 1,5 weeks and I ate a little more,but all the good stuff,no bingeing or junk.And still nothing,I am on the verge of giving it all up.It is sooooo unfair.I am doing my very best and still nothing,I bought clothes that I was afraid that they will be shortly too big but I can see that I should have no worries there.I hate this it is soooo dificult to not give up on hope.Please if you have any support write me:)thank you all.

It will come. When I started I lost like 2 pounds and then nothing for 6 weeks. Keep focusing on having a calorie deficit every day and things will start moving! Your body will soon recognize that you won't starve - it's tough when you start exercising because you won't see that immediate drop you're looking for - but it will come if you stay consistant!!

How much are you eating? Undereating is usually the problem if you are cc and exercising.

If you aren't religiously measureing/weighing food, you could also be overeating.

Otherwise, you'll have to give more info to get good advice--height, weight, age, activities, etc.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. I lost about a pound a week for the first 8-9 weeks. I have a weekly average deficit of about 5000 calories and haven't lost ANYTHING for the last 2 weeks! Yesterday I took a 3.5 hour HIKE and still only ate about 1900 calories! I teach yoga and spinning and walk my dog. I am trying REALLY hard not to drink wine (my biggest downfall--but still in my calorie count and a deficit). UGH!!!!!!!!!!!  I will keep at it if you will :)

Oh, I feel your pain.  I started dieting on June 1st, and I haven't lost a pound since.  I've actually gone up from 139 to 142 :O It's unfair, I know....  But, we just have to hang in there, right? 

I eat ~1500 calories per day, I exercise 4-5x per week, and I eat all healthy food!!! It's not right at all that we should work this hard, but have no progress.  I know just how you feel.  I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but then I don't know what it could be that I'm doing wrong!!

Just hang in there! That's what I keep having to tell myself....  It will happen soon enough.  With how hard we're working, it has to happen someday, right?

In the Advice section, see Ask Mary.  Mary is our CC+ nutritionist and she's answered a lot of questions about plateaus.  Maybe some of these will help you

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/qa/search.ph p?qa_search=plateau

ok,what I do is the following....my stats are 5'6-start weight 212lbs-current weight 185lbs.I started on the 6th of may 2008 and did not lose anything since 25th of june.I am fluctuating 2-3 pounds up of course but never down.I ate 1200cal for the first 7weeks and than I started to exercise.What I do is 5times a week grouplessons,I dont know if you are familiar with the LesMills group lessons.Body Jam (loads of jumping aerobic movements)BodyPump (weightlifting,squats and lounges with weights)BodyBalance (sort of yoga and tai chi) Now these I do 5 times a week.2 times the weight training lesson one and the rest once or twice,sometimes I go to 2 lessons a day.Plus for my job I bike a lot.I upped my cals to 1550-1700.And nothing hapenned basically since I started to exercise that was on the 18th of june.What could be wrong?

Original Post by carolann5111:

I know EXACTLY how you feel. I lost about a pound a week for the first 8-9 weeks. I have a weekly average deficit of about 5000 calories and haven't lost ANYTHING for the last 2 weeks! Yesterday I took a 3.5 hour HIKE and still only ate about 1900 calories! I teach yoga and spinning and walk my dog. I am trying REALLY hard not to drink wine (my biggest downfall--but still in my calorie count and a deficit). UGH!!!!!!!!!!!  I will keep at it if you will :)

 

I will also keep at it especially because I want to finally wake up one day that YES I found what I am doing wrong and can write a nice post here that might help others that are in the same place:)

You might want to try a plan that focuses on raising your metabolism and keeping it up there.  I've recently read a book "Crack the Fatloss Code" that is entirely based on not hitting a plateau.  I can't really recommend it since I'm just at the beginning, but the idea is appealing, and there are definitely plans out there that focus on metabolism and avoiding the plateaus.  You might consider doing some research on it to find one you like.

1200 calories is the minimum intake for someone who is sedentary and petite.  1200 cal is not enough food for someone who is 5'6" and exercising.  You burn between 2200 and 2400 calories per day.  Try increasing your calories to 1600 to 1700 per day and see if it helps. 

Many people find that if they eat too little then weight loss slows. If you don't eat quite enough, your body thinks there is a famine and conserves energy.  It sounds counterintuitive but it is true - you need to eat enough food so your body doesn't think it is starving, then your weight loss will kick back into gear.

Beate, I've been in your boat and have had a hard time understanding how someone who is active and overweight could have low metabolism. (I'm looking for research on it.) A year ago I went on a diet and didn't lose any weight but I knew going in it was hard for me to lose, so my goal was to increase metabolism.  The diet went from 1200 to 1600 calories. I was comfortable eating at 1200 but had a hard time with the 1600 so I drank alcohol for the difference. :-)  I came off the 1600 level, but felt my metabolism had increased because I was hungry more often.  I continued to concentrate on eating frequently. It is counter intuitive to increase your calorie level to lose weight, sounds like it goes against the "calories in/calories out" rule. However, metabolism is a 3 ton monster that needs to get smacked around to behave.

With CC I've lost an amazing 5 pounds so far, I've had one plateau after losing 4 that dropped the weight loss to 2.8 pounds.  Read the other advice and hang in there.

Original Post by alevin:

1200 calories is the minimum intake for someone who is sedentary and petite. 1200 cal is not enough food for someone who is 5'6" and exercising. You burn between 2200 and 2400 calories per day. Try increasing your calories to 1600 to 1700 per day and see if it helps.

Many people find that if they eat too little then weight loss slows. If you don't eat quite enough, your body thinks there is a famine and conserves energy. It sounds counterintuitive but it is true - you need to eat enough food so your body doesn't think it is starving, then your weight loss will kick back into gear.

alevin, and le3, she already mentioned in her post that she has upped her calories to about 1550-1700 since she had added exercise.

However, beate, it may be possible that you haven't upped your calories enough. Or, your body could still be in conservation (starvation) mode, and is still recovering from when you did not feed it enough. I'm relatively sedentary, I started at about the same weight as you (225) on CC, and I've NEVER eaten as little as 1200 calories in order to lose weight. Not to mention, I'm shorter than you are (5'2''). I've been losing my weight pretty much steadily for the past 6-7 months (prior to starting CC and after I joined CC), and currently weigh 203 from an overall starting weight of 235. At my current level of activity, I've never eaten any less than 1400 calories. I currently range between 1500-1800 calories a day, and lose about 1-1.5lbs a week.

Give your body time to recover. It may also be possible that, with all of your additional activity, that you need to eat more. It seems as though you lost a lot of weight initially very quickly, which is a good indication that you probably weren't eating enough before. Now that your weight has stabilized, it may be possible your body's still trying to recover. Eat maintenance for a little while--it might make you gain, but it might help you get back into losing the weight you want to come off.

From what you said it seems like you are waking up every morning hope to lose weight. To long for it so much everyday makes your life boring AND make everything seems impossible and long.

A diet is forever, its not like something you do for a month and lose weight then you can eat whatever you want.

Please make diet a *fun* part of your life and you will get what you want.

Original Post by chrystina:

From what you said it seems like you are waking up every morning hope to lose weight. To long for it so much everyday makes your life boring AND make everything seems impossible and long.

A diet is forever, its not like something you do for a month and lose weight then you can eat whatever you want.

Please make diet a *fun* part of your life and you will get what you want.

erm,I agree with making diet a lifestyle.BUT this is my life now....I did not just get here....it took me a loooong time to eat healthy and exercise.I used to practise lying on my bed as much as the olimpic swimteam spends in water.I used to eat 4person meals at the mcdonalds pretending that there are other people I am waiting to join me at the table any time someone passed by.SO I changed who I was radically for good,but I would like to see some results else I think I am doing something wrong and I cannot afford to do anything that would make me go back to bed and junk.I feel confident about what I am doing and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning but still I would love to see that what I am doing is beneficial for my body and mind.

I don't have any personal experience to offer you, but one article I read recently describes getting off plateaus by altering your total caloric intake from equal every day of the week to extremes from day to another, but still totalling the same weekly caloric intake as before.

http://www.stormpc.com/ww/wendie_plan.htm

If the link does not work, try Googling "Wendie Plan" and you'll find articles by people who were eating healthy, staying on plan, exercising, and yet unable to move off their plateaus (some for almost a year). The "Wendie Plan" turned the trick for them. Hope this is helpful to you.

- Michele