Breakfast-plain Greek yogurt, honey, apple peanut butter (tblspn)
Snack-almonds plain
Lunch- tuna with lemon olive oil and spinach or a kale salad
Coffee
Pre workout-a few crackers or a bananna
Dinner- lean protein and steamed veg or salad.
I usually stay around 1200-1400 cal a day. And always have a little piece of chocolate at some point

And I drink 3 liters or more of water a day. And thank you for responding

If your scale isnt budging you need to adjust your calorie balance. Either eat less or do more cardio. Right now you are eating exactly enough to maintain your current weight. If you eat exactly the same every day, and then add an additional 30 min jog every day to the workout you are already doing the scale will go down, as you will now be -200 calories a day. This theoretically will make you lose 0.4 lb per week. Your maintenance requirement will go down over time of course, and you will have to adjust things.

She is likely eating more calories then claimed (portion sizes). Weight loss/gain is a simple concept. If the scale isn't moving she is at maintenance level calories. Eating more will make her gain weight.

In response to portion size, I don't have a scale so no i can't weigh each thing but I do use the hand rules. You know
palm size for protein etc… Additionally I would be literally be starving if I ate any less, my job alone requires me to walk approximately 10-15 miles a day. I work in a 63,000 sq foot store as a merchandiser. And I'm not really strolling
around. Its a very fast paced job so I pretty much power walk around. I know that sounds odd. But its one of the
largest Forever 21's in America.

You are likely starving because you seem to have basically cut carbs out of your diet. Carbs are not evil, they are a very effective energy source. If you eat the same total calories as now with carbs the scale wont change, but you wont be so hungry.

Either way, changing your calorie balance by either in-taking less calories, or burning more calories (cardio) is the only way to lose weight.

Please explain how you gain weight eating under your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)?

There really isnt much to debate. The answer is you cant.

Giving to OP sound advice is what this thread is for. The facts about weight loss are pretty basic, as I have already tried to explain. Not sure what "coach" Wade is up to, but OP if you really want to educate yourself start here

[url]http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183[/url]

Okay guys, please keep this civil. Some people on here are getting a bit upset and JEFIT is supposed to be a safe space where we can all come for a bit of support and mutual-admiration where appropriate/necessary. Differing viewpoints are welcome here, and a bit of lively debate is to be encouraged, but please can we try to do this without causing upset to anyone. I think everyone here is making good points and the fact that some of the points are contradictory is just a demonstration of how people's bodies can be so very different in their responses!!!

Also, as other posters here have said, this is not an exact science. I have struggled for years with my weight and eventually found two things that sorted me out, both of which I was told not to do by Doctors and nutritionists!!! 1) I started, for all intents and purposes, fasting for several days in the week. Everyone said this was wrong, but it worked for me! Now fitness specialists and nutritionists talk about "Intermittent Fasting" which was exactly what I was doing that everyone was trying to talk me out of!!! But it worked and, as a strategy, it continues to work for me.

2) I gave up antidepressants. Turned out they were seriously mangling my metabolism. After I gave them up I found I had more energy, I was more alert, I was sleeping less, I was more motivated, I was going to the gym more, exercising more, and the weight started dropping off me.

Now I'm down to 10% bodyfat, the lowest I've ever been, and I'm really happy. Starting to build my muscle up again.

And this brings me to point one, that I want the original poster to understand. You say that you're getting stronger but your weight is staying the same. If you're getting progressively stronger then the most likely explanation is that you are building muscle (there are other explanations to do with muscle composition, ratio of type I to type II fibres etc, but basically I would say your muscles are growing with 99% certainty).

Muscle is denser than fat. A given quantity of muscle will therefore weigh more than the same quantity of fat. If your weight is staying the same, but you have evidence that your muscles are developing, then this means you are losing fat. Congratulations! You are succeeding!

In this regard, the term "losing weight" is an unhelpful misnomer. The balance is not the be-all-and-end-all of the process - you also need to measure your waist, consider your waist-hip ratio etc. (information on these things are available on the internet if you google them but be careful 'cos there's a lot of myth out there so read several reputable websites before you accept what you're being told).

Second point; if your calorie expenditure is greater than your calorie intake then you will "lose weight". At first you will lose fat, then when there is very little of that left you will begin to lose muscle. Of course, this is starvation, so getting the balance right is very important. 1,200 calories is very low and most nutritionists will advise you not to go below this or you are in starvation territory. That is good advice, and will work for most of the population. However, on my fast days I try to keep my calories below 800, so there are exceptions to the rule... (Let me be clear here. I am not advising you to do this, and you should certainly talk to an expert before you even consider it, I'm just saying it works for me).

There is a danger that at low calorie levels your body will go into a starvation mode, this will begin to hijack your efforts. One thing to remember is that muscle actually burns more calories just existing, than fat tissue does, so if you begin to lose muscle then your ability to burn calories will be compromised. Conversely if you build muscle (I'm not talking about "bulking up" here (which is a more extreme form of exercise development), just the natural process of getting stronger) then you burn more calories in the day which means you'll lose weight faster, but you'll also need more calories just to maintain your weight.

One way to avoid going into starvation mode while keeping your calories low is to incorporate a "cheat-day" where you eat more calories than normal (but still eating sensibly). This "reassures" the body that it is not going to starve, and so helps prevent it taking drastic measures. Some people "cheat" every five days in a structured way (eg restricting calories to 1,600 through the week but going up to 2,000 every five days, or something like that). Others just allow a cheat day on Friday, or Saturday or something. A google will come up with many schemes I'm sure, find one that suits you.

Carbs are important. The body burns carbs during exercise in preference to anything else, then it burns fat, then - in extremis - it burns protein. The principle behind low-carb diets is that if you want to lose fat then you should sustain the body as long as possible in a fat-burning mode. This is, for example, the principle behind the Atkins diet (about which a lot of rubbish has been written/propagated in my opinion). This works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone. Personally, when I tried restricting carbs I just didn't wake up!!! I couldn't do anything in the gym etc, was just permanently tired! So low-carbs is not for everyone, although some people swear by it - and quite rightly too!!! If it works for them then that's great! Give it a try; it might work for you, it might not. Sometimes it works for a while and stops working, then you have to try something else.

However, in many ways low-carbs is just a gimmick. At the end of the day, if you're eating more calories than you burn then even if your carbs are zero, you'll still put on weight. Conversely, if you burn more than you eat, you will lose fat even if every mouthful is Carb-City!!!

(Caveat: I'm just talking about reducing your bodyfat here; there are many other reasons for eating a healthy diet; avoiding diabetes, helping with medical conditions etc, which may result in different and conflicting advice. This is not a simple field, so there are no simple, hard and fast rules, just guidelines which need to be tempered by circumstances).

My advice is as follows: 1) Get MyFitnessPal or a similar smartphone calorie tracker and use it to accurately measure and track your calorie intake and your exercise levels, 2) Find out what your basal Metabolic Rate is - this is the amount of calories in each day you burn just existing, even if you never got out of bed at all!!! (the amount of calories you burn in an active day will be much higher than this of course!) If you're trying to lose fat, then the calories you take in, on average, need to be around or below this level. It's likely to be around 1,500 to 1,800 calories per day. If you have a lot of muscle and/or you are younger then it will be higher, if you don't it may be lower. As your body composition changes, your BMR will also change, so remember that - muscle burns more calories than fat!!! To find out your BMR you can use several calculators on the internet, or ask your Doctor.

Take photos of yourself over time using a mirror. This will, in the long run, probably be a more helpful guide to your progress than just weighing yourself is.

Don't expect fast results - you didn't put on the weight quickly, you won't lose it quickly either.

Vary the exercise you do, so the body doesn't get too used to it. Some exercises are better at burning fat than others. Swimming will lose more fat than running will in the same time.

Above all, don't get disheartened and discouraged. This is a marathon not a sprint. Results may be slow, but as long are they are constant and in the right direction, then you are being successful so celebrate that!

I'll let you into a secret; these "Get a beach-body in 4 weeks" diets don't work, so ignore them.

I hope this helps, and - guys!!! - let's all stay friends shall we ? ? ?

Kind Regards
Dave

Thanks for sharing this useful information with me.

Wow, too many ppl in here that think they know what they are doing because they have a $50 certification that says so...


OP - I would not take anything in this thread too seriously. Definitely seek a personal trainer with some credentials locally. Everything i just read is complete garbage. (most of it) Your best bet is to have someone track your measurements..... the weight on the scale is meaningless because it's not a true reflection of composition, and is really only good for those who are sub-10% bodyfat... more or less

Rick, I respectfully suggest that if you wish to contribute to the conversation, you should try to do so in a way that doesn't cause offence to the other forum users. By all means disagree with comments other people have made, but do so respectfully and back up your comments with information and facts. The comments you have made have the appearance of personal attacks/insults and that cannot be tolerated in this forum.

And, for the record, my Degree in Biochemistry cost a lot more than $50. I'm not sure that I can put a price on my 25+ years experience with gyms, but I suspect $50 would be insufficient there as well.

Kind Regards
Dave