I weigh 135 lbs and have weighed that much for about a year. I’m 18 and am 5’4″. My doctor says I’m fine and I know I’m healthy but I want to be thinner. In fact this is all I want. My therapist told me that losing weight won’t make me happy, but I am confident that this is not true. If it were true, people wouldn’t be posting their weight loss success stories on the web and thanking programs like P90X for giving their lives back to them. The source of my unhappiness is not having lost more than 2 pounds in the years that I’ve been working at this. I feel like I’ve tried absolutely everything except what has been proven unhealthy, like fad diets and pills. Four years ago I tried just eating less, but I was always hungry. That went on for about 6 or 7 months and I went from 107 lbs at 5’2.5″ to 96.8 lbs. I realize now that I wasn’t eating enough protein at the time and wasn’t taking in enough healthy fats. Now, the most I can lose by strictly following Tosca Reno’s Eat-Clean Diet plan is 2 pounds (BTW in her book she stresses that this is not a diet but a lifestyle change). What I’ve learned is that I must be at the lowest weight that is healthy for me. But I can’t accept that because I see hardly any muscle tone. Sometimes when I eat healthy food too strictly, I end up craving more food and just eating more food altogether. When I ate healthy food for a month, 5 meals a day with a recommended cheat meal every week, I ended up gaining weight. When I switched back to eating a little sugary snack everyday with a reasonably balanced diet, I dropped the weight again.
Then I decided to eat normally–for me that’s eating a balanced diet with a sugary snack everyday–and do P90X for 2 months. That’s how long I have until I have to go away to college. I’m almost done with my third week. The first week I dropped to 133 lbs because the exercise was decreasing my appetite. It felt really good not to have to consume as much food to satisfy my needs. However, once my body started building muscle I had to eat more again. I’m back to 135 lbs. At first my sister said I looked thinner but I know that’s just because my stomach looked thinner since there was less food in it that first week. I’ve seen small changes in my arms. My shoulders look more muscular. However, yesterday I was out with my friends and they said nothing about me looking any different. They don’t know I’m doing P90X and didn’t notice anything. My clothes aren’t fitting looser either. I feel like close to nothing has changed, despite the fact that I’m working really hard at every workout.
This morning I felt awful. I was supposed to do the Yoga workout today but I couldn’t stop crying during the first 5 minutes of it so I had to stop. My sister is annoyed at my crying and tells me I look bad in everything that I wear. It doesn’t seem fair that she so thin and toned and I’m not. When we were younger it was always the opposite.

Any encouragement at this point will be greatly appreciated. Just please don’t coach me about my diet. I’ve been reading internet information about weight loss from both credited sources and weight loss forums for about 5 years now, and I’ve put myself through regimens constantly for just as long. Unless you’re a dietician or nutritionist, I’ll have my doubts about whatever you say concerning what I eat. My question mainly goes out to those familiar with fitness/exercise.

I wrote everything I thought was necessary for you to get an idea of what shape I’m in. Any questions, please ask.