Why am I not losing weight? The reason can be metabolic resistance.

Question
A little background....
I am a 37 year old 5 foot tall female--I weigh 122 lbs and have 36% body fat (as measured by Bod Pod).  My oldest child is 3 1/2 years old.  Prior to becoming pregnant, I weighed about 100-105, exercised regularly and was typically under 20% body fat.  After having my first child (and having gestational diabetes and gaining 60 pounds), I found it very difficult to take weight off...in fact, I was on the South Beach Diet for 7 months, nursed the baby and walked 3 miles a day, 5 days a week and lost a TOTAL of 7 pounds.  Since my second child, I am finding I am having the same problem.  I recently had a full metabolic check using a VO2 and found that my daily intake to lose weight should be somewhere between 1100-1410 per day.  Additionally, my target heart rate should be about 150 BPM max.  My metabolic rate measured at 13% above average.  For the last 3 weeks, I have followed a lower fat, lower, but healthy carb diet at around 1200 cals/day--eating protien paired with carb every three hours, no refined sugar or white flour, lean protiens like fish, tofu and chicken. I drink about 64-96 ounces of water a day .I do 40-60 minutes of cardio in my target zone 6 days per week and weight train 3 days a week.  I have started taking green tea extract and CLA to help boost my metabolism as I was not seeing the scale move.  Since starting, I have gained 2.5 pounds.  My clothing does not fit any differently.  Frankly, I would rather stop working out and killing myself dietwise if I can just eat whatever I want and weigh 2 pounds more.  I have had my thyroid checked in the past but with no problems (my mother has hypothyroidism).  Any other suggestions on what might be going on?  Blood work you can suggest for my doc?  It just doesnt seem reasonable to me that I would not be losing weight on this very healthy and sensible diet/exercise plan (or the plan I was on in the past).  Maybe I should continue cutting calories back?
Thanks
jodi

Answer
Dear Jodi,

I think your problem can be your metabolic resistance. For this condition, as recent research showed, you might want a different eating and exercising approach. For one thing, the South Beach diet is too low in fat to shift your metabolic mode from running on carbohydrates to running on fat (utilizing ketone bodies instead of glucose) and your exercise plan can be missing the high intensity component.

I suggest that you learn about these things and when you have further questions (you'll definitely will) contact me again.

Here's the reading:

About Metabolic Syndrome
http://dietandbody.com/metabolic_syndrome/?page_id=2

Weight Loss With Metabolic Resistance
http://dietandbody.com/metabolic_syndrome/?p=13

The Anti-insulin to Pro-insulin Nutrient Ratio in Foods
http://dietandbody.com/metabolic_syndrome/?p=9

Best Exercise Type
http://dietandbody.com/metabolic_syndrome/?page_id=4

Interval Training
http://dietandbody.com/metabolic_syndrome/?p=10

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