Hi all,
I have been looking through the forums and seems there are some helpful people out there so thought I would give you a try!!

About 10 weeks ago I started a healthy eating and exercise routine and am seeing quite poor results so I am obviously doing something wrong!!

I am 5ft 11inches tall (female) and did weigh 178lbs 10 weeks ago, in the 10 weeks I have lost 4 pounds and 2 inches (but only off my chest - boooo!)

I am eating All Bran or poached eggs for breakfast, a piece of fruit mid morning, a salad for lunch with either tuna, chicken or salmon (no dressing), mid afternoon snack of low fat yoghurt, evening meal of fish, chicken or lean steak with veggies (no dressings or oil). I only have 3 small glasses of wine at the weekend, never have high fat takeouts, chocolate or chips etc. I am averaging 1400 calories intake a day and I monitor this closely. I drink 10 glasses of water a day (more when I workout) and 1 diet soda a day.

Exercise wise I do weight training 3 times a week, quite high intensity for an hour each time alternating muscle groups each day. 2 times a week I do 45 mins of interval cardio training, again, high intensity and I make sure it is varied, running, biking, elliptical yoga etc.

I am trying to get to my target weight of 156lbs. I realise that losing weight is hard work but I have to admit I am a little discouraged by only losing 4 measly pounds in 10 weeks!!! It seems so easy for other people!!!!!!

Is there anyone who can spot anything obvously wrong that I am doing???

Many thanks in advance for any help or if you have had a similar experience!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi there and welcome. I'll take a stab at giving some advice here.

The first thing I have to ask is are you counting calories or are you just estimating what you eat? I would suggest first of all that you register at some place like fitday.com or thedailyplate.com and track your meals and calories. Even if you don't keep it up long term, do it for just one week. It'll give you a really good idea of what you're eating - and if you might possibly be eating too many calories.

Also make sure that you're measuring your food carefully. It's easy to eat a little too much of this and a little too much of that and before you know it, you've added an additional 500 calories to your day, just from a few extra ounces here and there.

I calculate that you could probably eat around 1800 calories at your current weight and still lose weight. I don't really think you've been at this long enough to stall your metabolism or anything ... but given the amount of exercise you're doing, you could easily accommodate those extra. Maybe raise your calories up a bit and see if that triggers any changes?

Finally, all of that aside, I would say give it a little more time. There are some people who simply don't get that rush of weight loss at first. For whatever reason there are a lot of people who lose weight in chunks ... it's like their bodies need to process the changes and then ... *whoosh* ... all of a sudden there's a dramatic change seemingly overnight. I know it makes it really frustrating for you during the process, but honestly, I'd give it at least another 6 weeks before you switch things up too much or try to "fix" it.

I dunno .. I know that you're probably really frustrated, but you are seeing *some* progress, so something somewhere is working for you.

Kara's made some great suggestions with your nutrition, so I'm going to take a stab at your workouts.


Keep the workouts to three times per week but utilize full body workouts instead of alternating muscle groups. Split workouts really don't create as big of an afterburn with your metabolism as full body or metabolic circuits. You want the biggest bang for your buck in that hour, so use your time efficiently.

Make sure you are using the appropriate equipment as well. Sitting on a machine performing isolation exercises for 45 minutes are not going to get you results. Utilize free weights, medicine/stability balls, cables, bodyweight and barbells for your workouts.

Take out the long duration cardio and switch it for HITT workouts and see if that creates a disturbance with your weight loss. HITT workouts are no longer than 15 minutes in length, but are 'balls to the wall' so to speak in terms of intensity. There are stickies on the board that go into deeper detail on what HITT is and how to perform it.

Hi thanks so much for taking the time to comment, I really was getting frustrated!!
In response I do use an online calorie counter so I definately do track what I am eating well but if Im honest I think I would struggle to get any higher than about 1600 cals a day! I just eat very simple food and love salads, lean meats and veggies so I am full before I take on a massive amount of calories.
You mentioned Kara about people who suddenly get a "whoosh" of weight loss, I used to be able to lose weight very easily which is why I guess I am so surprised (and horrified lol!!) that I've not been able to do it this time around - I guess age takes that toll...................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will certainly do my best to up my calories to around 1800 a day as I have recently been having headaches and think thsi may help. I love the idea of shorter workouts so I will give the HITT stuff a try too.

Just one question!! I dont know what stickies are??? Im new to all this !!!!!!!!!!

At the top of each forum are posts that are "stuck" at the very top. The admins/mods of the board have pinned them there permanently so that the information is always accessible. Any post that starts with "Sticky:" is a permanent informational post.

I just had to add that when I started losing weight, I lost it off my chest too. LOL. The LAST place I wanted to lose was the first place it melted away...my hubby was bummed. It's starting to even out now, but I had to downgrade my bras

I had 41 inch chest so I have to say Im not too bummed about losing a few inches there as will be able to get some lovely bras!! Thanks for letting me know it evened out though, motivates me to keep going!!!

An hour is a lot of resistance training, especially for beginners. (and especially for a split, that's more than enough time for me to pound out a full body) I highly suspect that if you can keep it up that long you are either doing too many exercises, using too little weight, or some of both. What you really want to shoot for is very high weight - relative to the max you can lift for an exercise - for a smaller number of reps.

I could go into more, but I am curious if you are lifting this way to ensure you don't get bulky or out of a lack of weights and gear or for some other reason.

Also, what do your workouts look like in terms of weight, rep count, set count, and exercise selection?

Core makes a good point about full-body involvement. I just swapped from a full-body circuit at 4 sets of 7-10 reps to a 5 x 5 with 3 compound movements (squat, bench or overhead press, deadlift).

If you poke around on the board and look into both the stickies and a lot of the links posted here by steve and his ilk you will start to see why that makes for a better setup when trying to maintain muscle mass and lose weight under a calorie deficit.