But even though I've been quite strict about what I eat for the last three months, I'm stuck right at what I lost after the first month, and the scale won't budge! Here's my routine:

No sugar, no desserts (I've had one small piece of lemon merengue pie thingy in the last three months). Almost no red meat; no fatty meat. (I've had lean beef a few times in dishes). I mostly eat vegetables, skinless chicken breast, fish. No beer or hard alcohol (I do drink white wine at least a couple times a week - several glasses). No potatoes, no cheese except goat feta (some of this pretty much every day), no fried food, no pizza, no convenience food, no fast food, no sodas. Only brown rice or basmati, only whole wheat pasta. Almost no bread, except sometimes some rye melba type stuff, and occasionally sandwiches (with soup or salad) made with whole wheat and fat-free turkey, or just tomato, and a little "light" mayo.

I only use olive oil, and I'm careful with that - measuring it out by the teaspoon instead of pouring directly from the bottle - on salad, or for stir-frying. No butter at all.

This all seems fairly strict to me... and I don't cheat. And I don't eat huge portions. In fact, sometimes I try to force myself to eat something because I know that it's better to eat a little bit at different times during the day than to just eat one meal in the evening, but it's kind of hard for me to do this.

But I'm stuck! It seems like nothing more will drop! If you want to know what I do that seems like cheating to me, here it is: I still have (canned) milk in my coffee. I've tried skimmed, but I just put three times as much. If I have to, I can learn to drink it black. I have my wine, two or three times in the week. I sometimes have peanut butter, either in a sauce for stir-fry, or a little bit with a pear or apple. I love almonds, and still eat them, once a week maybe - more than a handful. I don't like (canned) tuna without mayonnaise, so I'm using "light" or diet mayonaise when I eat tuna, which is fairly often, and I also put mayo on my sandwiches - but I only have sandwiches a couple times a month, and I don't use a lot of mayo on them anyway. I have some coconut stuff that I've put in curry, and want to use some more - but still, I'm using like a teaspoonful, or slightly more - but it is quite rich.

I eat a lot of vegetables of all kinds, and some fruit - mostly pears and apples. I drink only water (a good bit of water), coffee (too much!), tea (all kinds), and wine.

Now, to be honest... all this doesn't seem all that different from how I was eating before, except yeah - no desserts (I never was very big on sweets, but they crept in), no sugar (i used to use it in my coffee), no pizza (used to have this too much - like once a week), no cheese (big difference here; I love cheese), no potatoes (that used to be at least once a week)... so actually, those things specifically are quite different.

About exercise: I need it, I should do it, I won't. I walk a lot... I would like to run, but nobody does that here (outside) and so I won't. Unless I come up with some exercise that somehow manages to really fascinate me (extremely unlikely), or something I can do that's just really, really fast, so I can force myself to do it and get it over with, the exercise thing is kind of a no-go, because I have no discipline... and I'm way too old to learn it. (And, I can't afford a gym membership.) I hate to sound so negative, but I can't tell you the number of times I've resolved to exercise, and then dropped it after a day or two.

I'm a fan of the Hackers Diet and one of the recommendations of the plan is to just fast for a day if you reach a plateau.

A single day fast won't hurt a healthy person and you'll lose half a pound or so. The pseudo-science theory is you'll tip your body into losing weight again. It's worked a couple time for me.

I'm pretty sure exercise is the only way to drop the rest. Ride a bike? Go hiking? Volunteer to walk dogs at a shelter? Garden? You don't have to have a consistent activity, as long as the activity is consistent.

I'm sorry, too, taz, but your diet sounds perfect and reasonable and cutting calories further sounds like it'll cut into your basic nutrient intake. Exercise is what you need. Not only because you'll burn more calories during the time you are exercising, but you will also burn more per hour for a few hours afterward while your metabolism is still elevated, and you'll burn more all the time because your newly built muscle will place an increased caloric demand on your body.

After a lifetime of experimentation and observation, I've concluded that maintaining a good diet only gets you halfway to staying at a healthy weight. Exercise has to be the other half. Not only will it get your weight under control, but it strengthens bones and joints to make the rest of life nicer and reduce injury potential, releases happy endorphins, and reduces stress.

You sound dead set against it, but maybe examine that. There has to be *something* you'd enjoy -- toodling around on a bike? Yoga? Dance? Since you have trouble keeping a resolution to do it, sign up for a class or partner up with someone who will be expecting you. It takes a very short amount of time to create a routine - under 30 days, I'd say. If you can stick with something that long - starting at, say, 3 times a week, which is more than you do now - you'll likely find you'd rather continue than quit.

I knew you guys were going to say exercise is the only way!! :) Well - I've been knowing that myself, and I ought to come up with something I can do... all I can think of is just walk - more. I'm in the city, no gardening, and the traffic scares me, so no bike. (And... I don't think we even have animal shelters; I don't know). Hiking... well that would be the walking more. I can walk up to the upper city, which is really nice, and an uphill thing; I just have to make myself do it, since it's fairly time consuming.

No class or thing like that is going to happen. It will be in Greek and hard for me to deal with (you must speak very slowly about very ordinary things for me to understand you in Greek)

Also, as to the fasting idea... God, that would be so much easier. I could fast for a day once a week pretty easily. But I was worried that it might throw my body into omigod-she's-starving-herself-we-have-to-conserve-every-calorie!! mode.

I fasted for 15 days once and it was the best! I love fasting. I do it one or two days a month.

Taz, have you thought of/tried working with dumbells? (hehheh, I guess we all do that more or less, but I mean the weights.) I find that a lot easier to commit to, less time consuming, and the results are quite significant -- you build muscle, and the muscle needs to burn more calories, so the fat burns off more readily. Dumbells are reasonably cheap (especially since you don't need really heavy ones to start), and I use videos at home. This page is also helpful.

If that's a no-go, then I think you need to switch to rigorously counting calories -- tedious and time consuming, but effective.

No, that sounds like something I could do. Especially because (unless for some reason you're not supposed to?), I could do that while I watch a dvd or something on television. Whenever I watch TV, I feel a little restless and uncomfortable, even if it's something I'm interested in. I've always thought I should do some kind of exercise during that time, but my idea to do yoga while watching TV didn't really work out (rueful face here). Almost no floor space, and maybe the fact that yoga is not really meant to be a thing to do while you watch CSI. :)

Oh, yeah, you could do that. I use videos because I like the follow-along "class" environment without the hassle of actually going to a class and dealing with other people. :) But you could also do some research and set up some good routines for yourself. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that when you're watching tv you don't get so distracted that you're not paying attention to your form as you work with the weights.

Personally, I would love to have a treadmill to use while I'm watching tv, but the cost is prohibitive.

I agree with JanetLand. Rigorously calorie-counting is the only thing that works for me. Exercise speeds the process, but you can do it without exercise. I have. (My credentials: I went from 215 to 155 in 6 months, and I have kept the weight off for over 5 years.)

It's not even that tedious after a few weeks. You start to learn how many calories everything has, especially if it's something you eat regularly. I used Weight Watcher points, and this web site.

Calculate points with this formula:
Every 50 calories = 1 point
Every 12 grams of fat = +1 point
If it has 4 or more grams of fiber, you can take off half a point. Round down.

Most vegetables don't count toward points. Fruit does, potatoes do.

The target ranges were:
170-200 lbs: 23-27
170-150 lbs: 21-25 points a day
130-150 lbs: 20-24 points a day

If you want a bigger meal one day, you can save up to 10 points by eating at the lower end of your allowed range.

Miko's concern:
cutting calories further sounds like it'll cut into your basic nutrient intake

Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

Everyone is right- you need to do some exercise. I recommend getting the dumbells, like suggested above, and working to build some muscle. When you replace the fat with muscle, your body will get smaller, even if your weight number stays the same.

What JanetLand and agro said. The only thing that worked for me was counting calories--honestly, consistently and rigorously. I lost 25 pounds last summer by doing that, swimming regularly and using dumbbells. I was the hotness. Like, porny hot!!
Now that I've gone and gotten myself knocked up again, it's been really hard watching the numbers on the scale slowly tick back up again.

I was the hotness. Like, porny hot!!
I love that.

I don't have any dietary recommendations, but I do highly recommend Denise Austin's Yoga Buns DVD.

Weight training burns fat like you wouldn't believe (says Wobbly Arse Woman). I was at one time really fit, and weight training was the key for me. I hate aerobic exercise but will walk fast up hills, and my resolution now I'm back from a week of stuffing my face in Sin City is to get the weights out and do some serious toning up.

Get some dumbbells and do all the usual arm exercises, plus lots of squats with toes turned both out and straight, to tone both inner and outer thighs as well as your butt.

If you do it, I will too!

Find yourself under undue stress or fall in love.

Oy. It's gotta be the exercise then (and you have a deal, Jan!).

Heh... again I'm going to sound awful, but I'm not going to count every point; I wish I would, but I won't. I'm just about positive that my calorie intake is quite low, but I can only do this by making these kind of broad, definitive rules. It's much easier for me to say no-sweets, no-sugar, no-cheese, no-whatever, than to count points for everything I eat (basically, because I'd have to either memorize them -- eek, thousands of food items! -- or look them up each time.)

And I know for certain that I don't have some kind of dieter's myopia... I'm not a snacker or a nibbler; I absolutely do not have things that I eat unthinkingly and forget to factor in. I should probably quit drinking wine, but I keep that as my particular indulgence, because I think it keeps me sane... plus, I've quit all alcohol of any kind for three months in the past, and it made no difference at all.

Which is not to say that the counting wouldn't do it; I bet it would... just that -eeeee!- I think I'd just rather keep the 10 pounds! (if you think you're noticing a trend here *cough, short attention span*, you are). I could do it (and have done it) for a week (or really - about five days), and that's pretty much my limit.

My great problem is that I will never do anything that feels tedious. It's much, much easier to do something like fasting, or anything sweeping and definite than to deal with my food like an accountant (which job would come out as number-last on my "what career is right for you?!" test).

Find yourself under undue stress or fall in love.

Agreed. It's been scientifically proven in tests that quitting your job AND getting dumped in the same week can make you lose up to 12 pounds in 12 days, AND an inch off your waistline!

Miko's concern:
cutting calories further sounds like it'll cut into your basic nutrient intake

Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

No, agro -- there's a difference between empty or excess calories and calories that provide essential nutrients. People (especially women) need to cover all nutritional bases for good overll health (which should never be sacrificed for weight loss). I wouldn't want to see taz getting less calcium, protein, B vitamins, monounsaturated fats, etc., especially since she's already a light eater. She's probably just about covering nutritional requirements now. So the trick is to reduce calories to the amount that your body requires for your level of activity, while still covering nutritional requirements. That's actually not so easy, but with a lean-protein, fresh-produce--and-whole-grain based diet like taz's, she's just about got it.

If anyone's curious about whether your diet is meeting minimum RDA for nutrients, you can use the free program at FitDay to analyze a day or two's worth of meals. I highly recommend it - this helped me during my post-smoking weight loss, which was significant.

Agro, your success is awesome, but I also caution women against comparing their weight-loss methods and rate to that of men. For whatever reason, men's bodies seem to respond far more quickly to changes in diet and increases in exercise than women's do. I'm sure some evolutionary biologist will run out and explain why women's bodies try harder to hold onto a slower metabolism; I can imagine some advantages w/r/t childbearing. But I've watched many a guy do some simple changes and drop dramatically, while I know for a fact that calorie reduction alone won't keep me in shape. I have to keep the metabolism fired up, or my body will just work harder to conserve the calories I do eat.

I'm glad people brought up weight training. It's fun, taz, and you might get addicted to it! Very easy to do while watching TV or DVDs, and the payoff is fast and satisfying. You will feel awesome (like a buff bruiser!). I used to do cardio-only to train for triathlons. When I added weight training, I dropped an additional 10# w/o a diet change - and WITH the obvious addition of muscle tissue. So yeah, try that! You can do a good circuit in 20 minutes, and it's good for bone health, too.

Men do gain muscle mass faster amongst other things i don't feel the want to get pedantic about.

Tazzy, you've firmed my resolved to finally enact some discipline on myself (and i'm a far more advanced state of unhealthy that you've probably ever been).

Here's some other ideas that have worked for me in the past that worked for other people who asked as well.
When i use to drive a lot, i use to do isometrics in the car. Basically things like the standard tightening muscles groups, like say the abdominals. You're suppose to tighten them and hold for 30 seconds and release and repeat, but i'd end up doing it over extended periods. I also use to have really good posture, the kind where it was uncomfortable to slouch-- gee, those were the days-- anyway, so i'd focus on doing the same thing while on the computer, or compute while standing or other odd things that could be done while doing other things, like while watching telly, as i'd get restless, too.
It's easy to cram in bits of exercise while watching something and then it times itself, too, if you do some simple repetitions or yoga poses while during the ads or the segments, etc. this way you can compete with yourself to do whatever little tasky thing (ten reps of this, fifteen minutes of that) so you feel accomplished and yet unstrained.

People have said great things and i personally wish i could weight train, just build up to it and don't strain yourself.
I was completely going to refrain from saying anything as i'm the last one who should, but since you've inspired me to take my own advice: thanks, good luck, and if we're gonna be a little support club about this, i guess i'd count me in right now while my posture is fabulous by self inflicted duress.

Just don't get hung up on numbers because it's not the numbers that count at this point. It's muscle building and metabolism, etc.

Enough about it from me before i start to bemoan things and such.

p.s.
i think my personal goal is that by the time jrossi is fetus free and feels the itch to get back to porny hotness, we can both reach those fashion facilitating states at the same time.
by then, of course, iconomation, dabitch and the rest of us will have a sassy baby clothes line as well and la la la projecting into the future as i have no plans to do any super shedding, gallstone making abnormal results for infomercials blah de blah blah--
wow, my back muscles feel so fit...

Oh, hey, when the man comes back, will he be all "Ooh, ahh, well, hey" and similarly single syllablicly impressed?

Heh. Well he's already seen this round (and was pretty impressed), and he actually lost about the same amount. We said that if we were going to be separated, we'd make the best of it by getting in shape and trying to accomplish some goals instead of getting depressed.

So! It appears I need to learn me something about moving some dumbells now. :)

without reading too much of this, i suggest a couple simple ideas:

always foods that digest slowly and are high-fibre and so don't overload your blood-sugar, prompt an insulin reaction, and store carbs in the form of fat.

beans, whole grains = beauty! other legumes good. etc.

anything refined = sucks.

if flour is "enriched," it means they refined EVERYTHING good out of it and put five nutrients back in, so OPPOSITE OF ENRICHED. AS BAD AS REFINED SUGAR.

whole grains means WHOLE, so they should be "chunky" and have real flavor. for example, no instant oats, not even any standard Quaker brand oats that are milled fine... steel cut oats or rolled oats or whole oats. look for real breads on the same principle. if the flour is milled really fine, you may as well eat sugar. real grainy grains taste better too.

also, sometimes the last few pounds are horded because of high cortisol levels due to stress. vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier suggests maca root to lower cortisol levels. works for him when he trains 8-hr days.

And think of the energetic reunion sex.
There's an exercise regime for ya, Taz.

Seriously, though, just stating my optimistic moment here has formed and firmed my resolve, and i thank you for it.

I'm in too, if we're going to do a diet/exercise group. I gained so much weight over the last year of unemployment (aka lying around reading SF novels and drinking vast quantities of hoppy beverages) that nothing fits me anymore and I'm unhappy. I've been working slowly on it (hard to diet without giving up beer, dammit) but reading this is getting me feeling more charged up. I'm tired of being fat. It is time to be skinny - well, skinnier - again.

Yep, exercise. Dumbells in front of the TV. And pilates! Pilates in front of the TV. And stretching. Get one of those exercise balls and roll around on it while watching TV. And go for more walks, brisk walks.

You can do it!

Bellydance videos are great. And you get a better work out than you might think. Naturaljourneys produces some, hosted by Veena and Neena (twins). But my favorite was "Hip Hop Hip Drop" by Rania, or "Bellydance Fitness for Weight Loss", also by Naturaljourneys. You learn a quick little routine, and you feel great.

:Rania also puts on a show at the end of the excercise, I guess to "motivate" you. Honestly, I think she's just showing off incredible abdominal control and I don't particularly find that part appealing.:

Sex is a good form of exercise you know...not the lazy "just lay me while i lay here" kind though. You need to get DIRRRRTY...get on top for example; not only will you get a good cardio workout, you'll be in the running for buns of steel too! Plus, you'll enjoy it too, and work off at least 350 calories per hour!

Hmm, i could stand to lose a few myself...any takers?

I'm late to the party, and I'm not one to talk about weight loss (How do you say 15 Stone in American), but I wanted to add a couple of excercise related things.

1) Walking. The recommended daily amount of walking is 10,000 steps a day. That equates to about 1.25 hours of walking per day. If you're doing less than that you'll not lose weight from it.

2) Unboring exercise. I hate to go all slashdot on you, but have you considered a cheap games console, dance game and dance mat? If you like the games, these can be horribly addictive and very good for you.

Eat your larger meals earlier in the day:

I lost about 50 pounds over five months by eating a regular breakfast and lunch (to be truthful, they weren't exactly healthy meals) and having only a bowl of cereal or bag of popcorn in the evenings after work.

Following up on redvixen and seanyboy -- my favorite not-like-exercise exercise consists of:

1. Load up playlist with good rockin' music, whatever really revs you up;
2. Shut all blinds/curtains;
3. Crank up the volume;
4. Dance your ASS off.

(This is a whole lot easier [read: less likely to cause annoyance to neighbors/housemates] if you have an iPod or something similar, needless to say.)

After 30-45 minutes of this, I am dripping sweat, panting, and feel fantastic.

work off at least 350 calories per hour!
So that works out to about 17 calories lost each time? Or is that just me?

Sorry, taz, but only exercise is going to do this for you. One way to get at least some exercise without having to think of it as exercise is to walk everywhere you can, and walk fast. That way, you can trick yourself into thinking you are just doing your usual walking, but you get just as much exercise (aerobically, anyway), as if you were running. By doing this on the way to and from the train every day, I get in 30 minutes of fast walking every weekday without really thinking about it.

do the atkins diet...and running/weight-lifting.
i know...i know...it's controversial...but once you learn to live w/out bread & pasta & packaged crap, you feel great. and fitting into the next size down is a great feeling :) you should get the book, read up & follow the diet...i've had 3 children (including a set of twins) in my 30's...i'm thin once again & feelin' cute. i once again eat regularly...carbs are a part of my diet. i've completely given up packaged crap for good...and not missing it!
but yeah...you gotta exercise...and keep with it or you gain it all back!!
if i can get rid of my squishy hindparts...anyone can