Its been 6 weeks of exercising and eating healthy why am i not losing weight?

[Brendav530]

My baby today is 3 months (baby # 3) and I've been exercising while eating healthy for 6 weeks now. I've only lost 3 pounds! I have lost one inch off my waist and 1/2 an inch off my arms (from 6 weeks ago) but that's it. I'm always sore from exercising but not getting results! I'm 5'1, 25 years old and currently weight 132. before my baby I weighed 115-120 PLEASE HELP!

[Barb135]

It's natural to lose weight like that after having a baby.  It's also not unusual to stall after a large loss.  You are right that most likely what you lost was fluid, and of course, the baby.  

Have you calculated the number of calories you need/day?  If you don't eat enough, your body will think there isn't going to be enough food to sustain it, so will go into "starvation"  mode.  

Maybe you need to change your diet and exercise around some - not eating the same things/calories every day or not doing the same exercise(s) every day.  Maybe you need to increase you calories for a couple of days, then decrease them.  Same goes with exercise.  If you do the same thing(s) every day, your body becomes used to it and it's no longer a challenge.

[Brendav530]

Thanks for all the advice! If it makes a difference did i forget to mention that 3 weeks postportum i lost 20 pounds on my own without exercise or dieting. (Swelling and baby i guess). What i meant to say was that after 6 weeks of exercising and eating healthy i feel my weight loss has stalled to only 3 pounds lost, it seems to be going super slow.

[Libby2999]

Well if you didn't exercise at all you need 1,700 calories a day. To loose weight you need about 500 calories less a day to loose about 2 pounds a week. You can probly make that a diffeence by exercise or cutting out calorie intake. Well if you walk fast 3-4 mph for one hour a day you'll burn about 300. (sorry if I'm blabbering on. Going thru it so you know how I got the awnser) you don't need to work and work til your soar either. Your not overweight but I do think that loosing some weight can help your overall health, and allow you to do more with your kids. Yes 120-115 is a great weight for you. 130 isn't bad it's just close to the bad range. Hope I'm not scaring you, back to calories. So if you walk an hour a day and eat 1,500 calories a day you'll loose about 2 pounds a week. Maybe a little less but never go under 1,200 a day. How I got this info? A few sites. I also heard that carbs encourage weight GAIN so eating low carbs should help. Here's some calculators I used.

http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/calculators/calories-required/

Loosing weight may be a up down thing. When I loose weight I go a few weeks loosing and a week or so not changing at all. It's weird and annoying, best thing to do is when you stop loosing weight to not get frustrated and eat even more but to stay calm and think about why you may not be loosening weight. Also eating low/no fat yogurt will help with keeping your stomach happy. :D I suggest you keep a food and exersisse diary so you can look and see if your doing something wrong. And don't be afread to take 2 days off dieting the week from exersisse. I swim for two hours a day Monday-Friday and the weekend is my rest days. Just make sure your eating enugh fruits and veggies. Good luck with a 3 month old and that plan, sounds good to me, keep it up

~libby

[Barb135]

It takes time for your body to readjust after having a baby; however, it doesn't look like you are doing all that badly.  

Are you keeping a food diary?  Maybe there are some areas that you need to change a bit - like eliminating something or adding something else.