Hello, I am 45 years old. I can not seem to lose a single pound now! A little history and hopefully this forum can give me new ideas to try. I am 5'2 and currently weigh 138 pounds. I only want to lose about 15 to 18 pounds; therefore, I am being realistic. I quit smoking exactly 100 days ago. Right after that I started working out to help NOT gain weight. I have been doing Jillian Michael's Shred and Ripped - five to six days a week in the morning. At night, I mix it up - I either run approx 3 miles, bike approx 10 miles or run/work out the fitness trail at the park, five to six days a week. I eat approx 1200 to 1500 calories a day and very, rarely ever cheat. I eat the small meals: like 150 calories every two-three hours, a nice lunch, a smaller dinner. I drink all the necessary water, before and after meals and throughout the day too. In the beginning, I lost six pounds. WOO HOO. On April 11th, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and put on medication. I immediately gained the six pounds back plus another four pounds. The doctor says the weight gain could be from the medication. So my question is help is: WHAT NEXT? I do everything "text book" correctly but now I am getting unmotivated and frustrated. I really want to start smoking again (but won't). I just need new help ~ is there something that I am missing that I can do?

I have been working on losing weight and for about 1 month I didn't loose a pound. I did a lot of reading on why I plateaued. Well come to find out I wasn't eating quite enough food and that my work outs were getting to be to routine. My body was getting use to the exersices I was doing. I had to find some different exersices and different levels of intensity. I did short burst of sprints when running and I did some stretching (yoga) to mix up the work outs. I started to eat a little more food, of course heathly items, like more protein. Due to changing a few things I dropped 5 pounds in a week. I also read though just because I haven't lost any weight doesn't mean I am not losing any fat. Lots and lots of water as well. In my opinion though I think you are the perfect the weight. I know for your height and body scale it should be less but honestly I think you are being just a little hard on yourself.

You are expecting too much! The hypothyroidism alone, and the medication, are going to make you gain weight. You can cut back on the calories a wee bit, such as not EVER going over 1200! 'Hardly ever cheat' is a loaded phrase, don't we all know...

Also, I don't think that 150 calorie meals more often is a good plan. If you really like the idea of more than 3 meals a day, stay with 4, and make them between 200 and 400 calories. You need to have the combination of types of nutrients ALL AT ONCE in your stomach. If you can do that on teeny tiny meals of 150 calories, go for it.