Why can't I lose weight?

Question

This is ridiculous. I am a 20 year old male and weight 190 pounds. I can not for the life of me lose weight. I eat extremely healthy and limit my calories to about ~1300-1500 a day. I exercise for about 2 hours a day playing tennis. My girlfriend will literally eat twice as much food as me the whole day without exercising and lose weight while I gain weight and she is 120 pounds. Here is an example of my meal yesterday which I gained 1.5 pounds from the previous day:

Breakfast:
Bowl of Cheerios with skim milk and 1 whole banana

Lunch:
Vegetarian Patty(170 calories) on whole wheat bun with tomato, mustard, ketchup

Dinner:
Four cups broccoli and 5 raviolis

I only drink water with my meals, too.

That is ALL I ate yesterday and I was FULL. I have eaten similarly to this for the last week exercising 2 hours a day with a net weight loss of 0 pounds. I also drink more than 8 glasses of water a day. What the hell more can I do?
(I am vegetarian too)

Answer 1

I am positive you have lost calories, no doubt you have gained muscle mass, don't go by what the scale reads.
Keep up the good work!

Answer 2

It sounds pretty good but you forgot your snacks. Try adding a snack 3 hrs after each meal. Healthy snack are a light yogurt, fruit, or a cup of veggies. You need to have 6 small meals a day to keep metabolism going. If you lift weights than that's probably why your going weight. Also you need cardio, do some jump rope for 10 min, go jogging for 30-45 Min's. You need proteins, carbs, vegetables, and fruit in each meal. Protein can be grilled or steamed chicken or fish the size of your fist, carbs can be whole wheat bread, cheerios, oatmeal,etc. Carbs should be the least in your plate though. As in for veggies and fruit, just limit fruit since some carry natural sweeteners, and veggies fill in half your plate. If you don't like raw veggies, then you could steam them like add some virgin oil in pan and add a little water with the medium heat and they taste much better. You also need to drink more water like 3 gallons. Also start lifting some weights, which Burns fat. good luck

Answer 3

Okay, there could be a couple of reasons. i list the ones that i can think of and you can try to see what helps you.

Medical Issue: there are several conditions that can cause your hormones to be out of balance and you will gain weight. see a doctor to make sure that is not the case.

Not enough or the right type of exercise. simple, muscle burns fat. well, actually, muscle requires more calories and will cause you to burn fat. you said you play tennis but do you do any type of weight training? if you look at most weight lost plans it include both weight and aerobic training.

You need to eat more: I know, this sound wrong but hear me out. you might have a slow metabolism. so you have to work with that. the best way is to eat 5 to 6 times a day. keep your same caloric intake but spread it out to 5-6 meals. eat every two to three hours. this should cause you to loose the weight.

anyway, hope that helps.

Answer 4

I have found that this works best.

Continue your eating habbits as they are.
However when you exercise, lift weights before you do cardio.
If you lift before cadrio it will get rid of the " quick " energy that is stored in your muscles faster than doing cardio first. The reason is that weight training burns the glucosamine and other quick energy that is stored because it stresses the muscle more. Thus once the quick energy is burned, the body will burn off more of the stored energy aka fat.

When you lift weights make sure that every 2 weeks you try to increase the weight by 5 lbs. Remember also that muscle weighs more than fat, and if you are trying to tone up, you will build muscle while burning fat.

Another thing to remember is that if you are trying to get your six-pack back, the only way to do that, is to burn the fat. You can do sit ups and ab work from now till you die, the thing about it is this Fat covers your muscle, you are toning the muscle, but the fat still hides it.

Remember to also take supplements. I have a list of supplements that I take however its way to long and boring to post. Good Luck Hope this helps.

Answer 5

You're plateauing... you've been on low calorie too long and now in starvation mode.

You should use the shifting calorie method.

Here's an awesome article about it:

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Lose-100-Pounds---In-The-Quickest,-But-Healthiest-Way!&id=650390

It says it's for people who need to lose over 100 pounds, but it works for anyone.

In fact... the author of that site put out a report. Read it, it's awesome:

http://yayfood.com/join.html

I'm a member of that site and love it.

Answer 6

you have the wrong idea about weight loss.
to lose fat you have to eat creating just a slight deficit in caloric intake.
what you are doing is depriving your body which makes you lose water weight and muscle and gain fat.
find daily calorie intake calculator on the net, enter all your stats and it will tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain, take off 300-400cal off that number and thats how much you need to lose.
eat 5-6 small meals a day (eat every 2-3 hours - it optimizes your metabolism)
5-8 servings of fruit and veggies a day
8 glasses of water
have complex carbs for breakfast - they give you energy
have protein (soy and milk products, fish, legumes etc) for dinner - repairs muscle and your body needs it
cardio is the only fat burning exercise and burns fat all over your body (running, jogging, swimming, spinning, elliptical etc) 4-6 times a week for 30-50min (ideally 45min because the first 20-30min body burns carbs and only then starts burning fat), dont go over 60min, light weight training (more muscle=faster metabolism)
dont consume foods that are made of white flour (white bread, cakes, Cheerios (if it says "made with whole grain" on the box its not good), pasta etc.), sugar loaded foods (cookies, icecream, candy etc) and nothing fried, oily, ketchup.
ofcourse you can spoil yourself once in a while with a little treat:)

Answer 7

Eat only when hungry and not more than thrice a day. Nothing other than water in between. Include plenty of uncooked vegetables and fruits in each meal, preferably 50%. Chew each morsel at least 32 times to activate ur body to generate signals of hunger/fullness. Obey these signals.

Take light exercises and brisk walks regularly preferably twice a day.

U will achieve what u have not even dreamt and that too in a reasonable time. Do not be in a hurry.

Answer 8

It would be a good idea to see your GP as it might be that you are wheat intolerant...yes that's right wheat intolerant. If you can't see your GP why not experiment and not eat wheat produce. See what happens.

Answer 9

i was gaining wight like crazy since i changed school and lost much of the weight in a month
i started eating less but very healthy and it was getting me full as i continued to do so.
remember that weighing 190 is not that bad. if you are exercizing i mean... that muscle tissue weighs more than fatty tissue, and maybe u are developing muscle and burning fat.
its not about weighing less... its about keeping your body strong al healthy .

Answer 10

hii,
check this site they offer a program so as to lose about 9 lbs. every 11 days, and it really works, i subscribed for this program for about 2 months ago ,and it's for real it helped me alot.Here is the link http://overweight-doc.co.nr ,hope it helps.