What am I missing here? (Another failed program post, sorry)

G

greecia76

New member
Hey guys, I was hoping to get some feedback please on what’s wrong with my weight loss routine. I feel like I’ve been following all the good advice and I’m still not getting results (I’m sure that’s been mentioned like a 1000 times here!)

Sorry for the very long post, I wanted to provide as much detail as possible to help you understand my situation.

My Information

Female
33 Years Old
5’ 3”
166 lbs
Desk job all day
Used to be very athletic in high school and still have a good bit of muscle under the fat
No kids
Smoked for about 10 years and quit almost 9 months ago
Most of my fat is in my belly and butt of course
Already had Thyroid tested and it was OK

I figured my maintenance level with my sedentary job is 1910 kcal a day.

Diet

-No fast food
-No alcohol
-No sodas
-Fried food once a month tops
-No junk snacks (My only snack is usually a green apple or low-fat popcorn)
-Only caffeine source is some green tea in the morning
-Mostly white meat and fish (Red meat 2-3 meals a week)
-About 80% all natural ingredients
-About 50% organic
-Whole grain waffles with sugar-free syrup for breakfast everyday
-Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables (5 serving a day min)
-Daily multi-vitamin

I’ve been on this diet for the last few months now.

Exercise
5-6 Times a week (Minimum four if a very busy week)
45 minutes to an hour
Combination of elliptical and Jillian’s latest DVD (Aerobics and weights)
I always make sure it’s hard enough to break a sweat :D
I’m a tax accountant so my work day consists of 12 hours of sitting on my butt

Caloric Expenditure Log

I’ve started keeping a daily log of how much I eat, how much I exercise and how much I weigh. Below is what it’s looked like for the last two weeks:

Monday: 1345 kcal / 60 minutes / 166.2 lbs
Tuesday: 1350 kcal / 60 minutes / 164.8 lbs
Wednesday: 1430 kcal / 15 minutes / 165.6 lbs
Thursday: 1500 kcal / 45 minutes / 165.4 lbs
Friday: 1365 kcal / 60 minutes / 164.8 lbs
Saturday: 1705 kcal / 00 minutes / 164.4 lbs
Sunday: 1345 kcal / 45 minutes / 165 lbs

Monday: 1365 kcal / 45 minutes / 165.6 lbs
Tuesday: 1359 kcal / 00 minutes / 164.8 lbs
Wednesday: 1400 kcal / 45 minutes / 164 lbs
Thursday: 1635 kcal / 00 minutes / 163.8 lbs
Friday: 1380 kcal / 60 minutes / 165.2 lbs
Saturday: 1355 kcal / 60 minutes / 164.8 lbs
Sunday: 1275 kcal / 100 minutes / 165.2 lbs

Goal

2 lbs a week would be awesome! I’d love to drop down to 135 lbs over the next 4 months ?

So any ideas on what I’m doing wrong or what I need to do extra? Any help would be very very appreciated! I wouldn’t mind even paying for professional nutrition or exercise advice if I need to; I’m hitting my desperate point now.

:banghead:
 
Ok, so taking it at straight math, you're averaging 1414 calories per day. If your maintenance is 1910, that means you're at a 496 calorie deficit per day. Let's figure you burn another 400 calories every hour you work out (a reasonable average). The numbers above are about 4000 calories.

Not taking into consideration hormonal differences, sodium, or anything of that nature that affects your weight, just using straight math, here's what you have:

4000 calories burned in exercise
7000 calories burned in eating less
11,000 calories total.

In other words: 3.14 lbs over 14 days.

Let's assume that you're 100% spot on in your calorie counting, and you haven't mis-measured or forgotten anything. (Btw, are you weighing your food? If you're not I'd suggest you watch this video - it could make a difference: )

If you're ovulating, you could be retaining a few pounds of water. If you're near your period you could be retaining a few pounds of water. If you ate something high in sodium, you could be retaining a few pounds of water.

Are you weighing at the same time of day every day, wearing the same clothes? Do you eat or drink anything before you weigh? Do you go to the bathroom before you weigh?

Really that just looks like the normal fluctuations in weight based on all those things. At one point you were down to 163, which is a 3 lb loss. Then you bumped back up - could be due to any number of things.
 
It looks like what you're doing is pretty sound so far. Averaging each week shows a loss of almost 0.5 pounds...although it seems like you should've lost at least 2 pounds by now. But I'd suggest you stick with what you're doing for another two weeks and then see how things are going. It's not uncommon for the scale to not move for a while...it's happened to all of us and two weeks isn't long enough to get the big picture yet. Depending on the time of the month for you, you may be holding onto a little bit of water weight right now. So stay at it for a bit longer and don't get frustrated yet! :)
 
I'm not an expert but our stats look similar so I thought I'd tell you what's worked for me.

I'm the same height and almost the same age as you and I started out in Jan at 157 and have gradually lost 19lbs.

My cals range 1200-1800 a day. I have at least two high days a week, which seems to keep my metabolism working. On an average day I probably eat around 1500. For the first month or so I also worked out hard at least once a week and was losing at least 2lbs a week. This has now slowed, but partly because I've exercised less due to other commitments and eaten nearer the higher end of my cal limit more often - hence last month I only lost 3lbs.

Sometimes you may not see a loss for a couple of weeks, but then drop a couple of pounds overnight. I think the main thing is to keep going...
 
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