why aren't i loosing weight?

You seem to have a metabolism problem as evidenced by: 1) being overweight (220 lbs), 2) eating very low calories (1500 to 1700 a day), 3) working out 5 days a week with no change in body weight, and 4) taking diet pills to change your metabolism.

What you want to do is to increase your metabolism in a way that is healthy and more than just momentary. What you want to do is to bring about life long changes in your metabolism, and that entails doing some things differently than what you are doing.

Here are four routines to help you change your metabolism:

EATING/ DRINKING ROUTINE:
1. Increase the number of times you eat daily. I would say that you would want to start by eating "6" times a day.
2. Pace your meals about 2 hours a part. Your body can completely digest a certain amount of calories in two hours, thus leaving you to be able to eat more, and by eating more within a certain amount of time, guess what you are doing to your body? You are increasing your metabolism!!
3. Count your calories per meal. The body can only metabolize so many calories at one time. The magic number of calories a body can metabolize is different for every person… BUT IT DOES NOT ENTAIL STARVING YOUR SELF. I eat 300 calories per meal and that seems perfect for me. I’ve done so for three or four years and am doing so meticulously after the holiday seasons.
4. Eat sufficient calories to keep your metabolism from going into "starvation mode". Once the body is in starvation mode your metabolism prepares for a metaphorical long winter and shuts down to a very low running system.
5. Eat good calories. All calories are not created equal. Protein is the highest quality calorie as it has 4 calories per gram, and the body burns about 10% of protein calories in processing the protein; whereas, fat contains 9 calories for every gram and the body doesn’t burn much of the fat calories to process it. Carbohydrates are 4 calories per gram and are a diets staple.
6. Have an "eat" day. Once a week increase your calories by 25 to 50 calories a meal. This will spark your metabolism and keep it from adjusting too much to your routine diet.
7. Drink a certain amount of water with every meal, and make it a routine. I drink 16 ounces with every meal. This precision in counting calories and drinking water let’s me know exactly where I am at weight wise.
8. Don’t cheat! There is a great amount of self deception in striving to lose weight and get into great shape. This self deception is curtailed by following a calorie counting diet, but there is the tendency to want to "cheat". The cheater voice says, "Eat this! It won’t matter. Just this once! It’s okay". That voice is not your friend!! Don’t listen to it.

As good as exercise is "most" of your benefit will come from eating properly.

EXERCISE ROUTINE
1. Exercise in the "aerobic" zone. Some for of jogging or use of a treadmill or elliptical is the best as it exercises the largest muscle groups of the body (legs). Aerobic exercise is primarily determined by your heart rate. If you exercise too intensely (Anaerobic) you are primarily a "sugar burner", and at some point your body burns up all its sugar and then starts to eat the muscles to get more sugar. The fat is then not burned, or only burned minimally. If you are not exercising with the right intensity (Sub-aerobic) then you are not generating enough effort to burn fat. The aerobic zone is about 65% to 80% of your maximum heart rate. This is important! Expensive monitors may be helpful but not necessary. To get a good estimate of what your maximum heart rate is, run as fast as you can (after a good warm up jogging etc.) for about a minute and then your index and middle finger to your jugular vein. Count to six seconds on a watch and count the number of heart beats. Multiply the number times 10 to get your “approximate” maximum heart rate per minute. Then take the number and times it by .65 (65%) and also .8 (80%) to get a range … your aerobic “fat burning” range. Test your heart rate every so often during the exercise to train your body to exercise in that zone.
2. Incorporate weight lifting in your exercise. Muscle is a fat burner. If you don’t have muscle mass you don’t have fat burners. You may need to cut out 15 minutes to 1/2 hour of your aerobics and add weight lifting. You will need to design a full body workout to do it right, though you may exercise your body in two (or three) different days.
3. Rest from you exercise about every three days. Rest is vital to a body’s recovery and should be part of your routine. Listen to you body when it says ‘i don’t want to work today". Be good to your body, make agreements with it, and persuade it to follow you by giving it what it wants and needs once in a while — like rest.

MEASUREMENT ROUTINE:
1. Keep a record of your progress. Note the time of day you weighed yourself, and the change from the prior day. If you have strayed from your routine (diet) jot down what you did and what you need to do to get back on track.
2. Weigh yourself at exactly the same time, with the same type of clothing (or none at all) every day. I prefer in the morning right after I use the bathroom and before I eat. I also weigh myself before and after exercise so that I know how much I lost during the exercise.
3. You should aim to lose about 2 to 2.5 lbs a week and no more. Any more than this will result in muscle loss. You need your muscle to burn body fat! If you find that you are losing more than this, then you will want to add calories (25 to 50 per meal) to your diet. If you are not losing around this amount (and you have given it two weeks) then you will want to cut out 25to 50 calories per meal. Play around with this till you get it right. Don’t be afraid to be wrong, but give it a chance to work.

MOTIVATION ROUTINE:
1. Get a picture of what you want to look like. Find a picture from a magazine that inspires you, that you feel you can look like or that you want to look like. Look at this picture daily, and anytime that you feel weak.
2. Chose a target weight for yourself. Affirm to yourself that you are going to reach this, and do it in a healthy and supportive way.
3. Know that you will succeed and allow yourself to feel that success already within you. See the success in your mind, and you will be on your way.

Much of your success will come by virtue of you having the proper motivation and by cutting out the negative, fear based approach to weight loss.

Now this is a lot of stuff, and yet not so much. Try it and you will see results!! But if you try it, then give it all that you have and do it for one month. You may need to unlearn some of the things that you’ve been doing. But give it a shot and follow what works for you.

I hope this helps.

You’ve only been on a diet for 3 weeks and you’re probably just naturally fat.

maybe you are. but your gaining muscle. and muscle weighs more then fat. if you want to lose weight. just run run run and run like crazy.

lose the diet pills and bullshit supplements. eat healthy, exercise. you’re porbably too few calories

Why are you taking diet pills at such a young age? That is not the way to go.

You could be having too much sugar in your diet although your calorie intake is low.

Your workouts could also be the wrong type for you. Make sure you’re doing cardio workouts… Not something like lifting weights, etc.

Stop stressing out, too. That doesn’t help.

You should really only be loosing one or two pounds a week as well.

I wouldnt take any diet pills! I tried a diet last summer where i was doign a 1400 calorie diet and once a week i would increase my calories for a day and then drop back down, i exercised on the wii fit, and with exercise tv on demand. for about an hour a day. I had breakfast, a fruit, lunch, fruit, dinner , fruit.. the fruits were snacks. It worked out great! I lost 30pounds in like a month! then i had to slowly increase my calorie intake back up and keep exercising and im fine!

ok here is what you need to do worked great for me, a little known fact is that cortisone lotion is actually an excellent died aide just use it in your food like mayonnaise’s or catsup or take it straight, good luck.

You might have a thyroid problem. Maybe go see your doctor and have them do a full work up on you. If everything checks out maybe go see a nutritionist.

talk to a dietitian or your regular physician for dietary advice

replace soda with water.
try to stay away from a lot of red meat (if you aren’t already there).

make lots of extraneous movements during your day, i.e. walking home through the park instead of just straight home, to burn more calories.

strength training with weights to build muscle (which burns more calories)

don’t stress about it.

take up meditating/t’ai chi/yoga to relax.

listen to upbeat music while working out (studies have proven women tend to lose weight with music).

good luck

First of all, ditch the acai, which you are probably getting from that stupid Mona Vie drink. Ditch the colon cleanser too. Cut your calorie intake to half of what it is for three weeks and allow your metabolism to catch up with what you are actually ingesting. Remember every person has a different metabolic rate and digest foods faster/slower, and also in many different ways. You need to get into cardio workouts like tae bo or hip hop abs or any high rate cardio exercise. Start slow and by the end of two weeks I guarantee you will be doing the excercise tape from start to finish at the same pace as those skinny twits on the screen.

I have lost 145 lbs. since 2005. I am 33 years of age so I have twenty years of age on you and my body gets healthy alot slower.

Stay away from SUGAR, PASTA, AND OTHER HIGH CARB/STARCH FOODS. Put the potatoes aside and eat semi cooked carrots or even raw carrots if you choose.

Do this and I bet you’ll lose weight fast. Also, recognize that muscle weighs more than fat. The more muscle your body builds, the more it may seem you are gaining weight on the scales. DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT…YOUR BMI IS WHAT MATTERS.

Watch your intake, do some cardio workouts and you’ll have sooooo much more energy and lose weight alot faster and have more healthy results.

Good Luck,
Tim

what weight are you trying to get down to?….
I read (and found out from personal experience) that when trying to lose weight, it is best to eat the amount of calories that you would at the desired weight (on top of exercising)….
anyway, below are a couple of links that will help you determine a healthy weight range for your height, the amount of calories you need in order to be that weight, and how to make sure you don’t go over your daily caloric amount:

http://www.debramoorhead.com/blog/index.php/how-i-lost-25-pounds-in-one-month/
http://dftools.ivillage.com/healthtools/calc_iw.cfm
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_6_1x_Calorie_Calculator.asp

good luck to you on this