Holy Crap ...

So as most of you know, I've been struggling for about 5 months now with losing weight.  I have felt like I was working my freaking butt off, being super strict with how and what I was eating, getting excited to finally see results ... and nothing.  A big fat 3 pound window.  I kept hearing a lot of suggestions, (which I STILL really appreciate!!) most of which were: are you sure you're eating as little as you think? are you sure you are actually exercising and burning as many calories as you think?? So I would work harder and eat more restrictive.  Push and push and push.  NOTHING.

Five months after I first plateaued I realized I needed to figure out exactly what was going on.  I bought a food scale to be sure I could weigh and measure EVERYTHING I ate and track it in MyFitnessPal.  I bought a Body Sensor to track EXACTLY how many calories I was burning every day.

I've only been tracking for 3 days ... but already I'm seeing a crazy trend:  Day 1 = 1600 calorie DEFICIT.  Day 2 = 2100 calorie DEFICIT.  Day 3 = 2000 calorie DEFICIT.  Uh ... that is WAY too high a deficit.  No matter what.  And this has been a very typical week.  I purposely tried to not work harder than normal or eat differently than I have for the last 5 months.

So it can really only be one of two things:

1) My thyroid isn't working right.

2) Starvation-mode is a REAL thing and my body is completely freaking out and refusing to lose weight because it isn't getting nearly enough calories.

I have spoken with a couple of Personal Trainers who have said they don't recommend more than a 1000 calorie deficit on any day, and even that is REALLY HARD to maintain.  YES IT FREAKING IS!! And I'm pretty sure I've been doing it for at LEAST 5 months, if not more.  Yikes.  No wonder I kept getting frustrated when people would suggest I needed to work harder or eat less ...

Moral of the story ... I should have invested in a food scale and a body sensor right from the start.  Go buy one.  Now.  Just do it.  Figure out exactly what you are doing right and where you can improve. End of story.