I'm at the end of my tether and frankly quite fed up!
I need to know WHAT more do i need to do.
I'm 32, 5 ft 4 tall & weigh about 176 lbs.

Bit of history
1. Overweight childhood
2. overweight teenage
3. Overweight NOW

I've always had food issues. I've battled with it all my life.
I've grown up hearing " She so pretty-if only she'd lose some weight". Grrr!!!
At my worst i've been 198 lbs.
In 1995, i started a regulated exercise regime. I lost weight gradually. but, after I lost about 20 lbs, everyone around me started to notice & tell me how good i looked. Then I think i went a little mental! I got into this phase where i wanted to shed weight ASAP. This led to me starving. I would survive one just one apple all day. I did lose 66 lbs in 4 months, but looked & felt horrible. Then the lbs crept back.
Now i eat right & exercise regularly.
I try not to exceed 1600 cals & work out for about 1 hrs everyday.
I've not indulged once since i re-started ( 20th jan) The problem is- I'm Not losing any more weight!!!
Has my body sort of given up after yo-yoing a million times?

I do 15 mts on the elliptical- 165 cals
15 mts on the treadmill- 100 cals
20 mts on the aquacyle- 225 cals.
A total of 500 cals.
Please help. It is sooooo demotivating to be stuck at the same weight for days!!!!!

Have you taken measurements?

First off welcome and I am sorry for your frustration, it is something though that I see a lot with clients, you are not alone.

The problem is in short that your routine and diet leave you to be not a fat burning machine but a muscle burning machine. When you starved yourself you likely depleted most of your muscle. When you gained the weight back it was pure fat and water, and now you are trying to save your muscle at all by having low calories and to much cardio.

With a case like yours it is hard to give "generalized" advice but the best place to start would be to implement a resistance training routine and back off on your cardio. Taking some rest time would be wise too. Basically you need to give your body a break, you have put it through a lot and you aren't going to see any difference or change until you do that and start training the right way.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I've learned a lot with this forum. Weight training will help with not just the weight but it will help with retaining the muscles that you have and then some. All that cardio in my experience will not help with losing the weight. Even though you may think that you're eating healthy, you may not be if you're not recording everything you're consuming. I had thought that I was eating a balanced diet and I've found out recently that I'm not and it's from recording my food intake. Try Fitday.com. I know how frustrating it is to work so hard and not see results, but I'm sure there are people here that will help and you just have to take your time with it. It's a lifestyle change and changes like these take a while to get used to. Good luck!

Thank you all. It's a load off me. I've taken measurements & i've lost inches but not much weight.
I hate doing weight training. But after reading your posts, i'll start TODAY.

mnexercse girl, i visited the fitday.com website. It doesn't really help me coz they have no listing for indian food. I'm largely vegetarian & i cook my food from scratch. So i control what goes into a dish in terms of fat, carbs etc. I eat a lot of veggies & friuts. I'm at the moment refraining from meat.

Thanks a lot guys!!!

Something else to think about is that as you work out, you're building muscle, right? So even if you were just doing cardio, it was a lot of work for your legs, so it could have been at first you were building muscle mass at the same rate you were taking off fat. I'm of the belief that it's not what you weigh, but how you look and feel. I mean it's nice if the numbers on the scale go down, but it's not the be all and end all.

Sorry, wrong. This is a common misconception. The vast majority of people cannot be in a caloric deficit and build muscle simultaneously.

hi rashmi
I am an indian female too & I prefer vegetarian food also, I know its frustating sometimes to want to have indian food as well as not to lose weight. But i've got a few recipes to cook indian foods without oil & i am starting a regime from today, I'll be happy to share the recipes with you. good luck! You can do it be persistent!

So you can't gain muscle while cutting calories, even if you are lifting while not eating as much?

To gain muscle, you have to take in more calories than you use. To lose fat, you have to take in less calories than you use. Because its impossible to use both less and more than you are taking in, its impossible to do both at once.

The process of building muscle is extremely calorie intense; it is metabolically the most "expensive" process your body can undergo. When you're in a caloric deficit, your body genetically is programmed to preserve fat stores first. If you break down muscle tissue (e.g. through weight lifting), it will repair the muscle. But it won't add new muscle tissue, until you have a surplus of calories.

There's actually quite a bit about this posted in the Index of WLF "Keepers", a listing of posts from WLF that contain more than the usual information.

Just to add to what you said, although it is impossible to be in a calorie deficit and a calorie surplus at the same time, it is not impossible to add muscle mass and lose fat at the same time IMO.

However, I would concede it is very difficult ( if not close to impossible for most of us ) to add ' significant ' muscle mass and lose ' significant ' body fat all at the same time. So if you put the desire to have ' significant ' fat loss and muscle gain aside, it's been my experience you can achieve modest changes in both ( muscle gain and fat loss ) at the same time.......it certainly isn't impossible.

For example, during my days in coaching elite level hockey players, we had our off-season training season run from May 1 to Sept 1 for both returning players and prospects. They were given benchmark evaluation tests May 1st and then given training protocols to follow for 4 months to increase strength,improve cardio fitness, speed, quickness etc. etc. In more than a few cases, by Sept 1, follow-up tests revealed players were found to have lost fat and gained muscle mass over 4 months of training. Usually the biggest fat loss / muscle mass gains were found among the prospects who weren't as in good of shape or had never seriously trained before as compared to some of the returning players

So, from a general perspective, it's more likely, the ability to do both ( add muscle and lose fat at the same time ) is more prevalent in people who are new to training ( where where not body fat levels in conjunction with lean body mass levels are substantially less than opitmal ) and are unfamiliar with the various adaptions to exercise their body may undergo as a result of exercise. So, it's not uncommon to see trainers training some clients that have never exercised before in their life, achieve desirable changes in fat loss and muscle mass at the same time.