At a complele loss as to wut to do. plz help

First off, Please read my about me, its not too long..and it will really make u understand where i am coming from..so i dont have to retype it all here...

but i really need help to lose weight. i cant seem to follow any plans i come up with ...and i cant afford to go to a nutritionist or a gym bc i dont have the time or money.

its frigidly cold winter here and i cant do much outside.

i want a good meal plan idea for a weeks worth (but mind u i cant afford alot at all) and i really need to be able to lose the weight.

please help me , give me suggestions. this is a big cry for help.

I have been on a plateau gaining and losing the same 10 lbs for the last 6 months, so i dont really have a lot of advice as to what you should as far as eating because i definitely dont have that down pat. Excercise you can always make time for. I work, am a full time student, and a single mom of four children under ages 8, 5, 2, 1, and i always get in at least three workouts a week. I have videos at home that i use if i cant make it to the gym.(you can find inexpensive ones) Also if you really cant afford it, do calisthetics. Jumping jacks, pushups, and all of that are great calorie burners and muscle builders. Lots of squats and lunges will get your heart rate up even if you are not using weights. Using your large muscle groups will burn more calories. Hope this helps a bit. I bet if you cut out the eating out all the way then you would lose quickly. Even if you buy healthy its cheaper than eating out all the time. you could buy salads and boneless skinless chicken enough for a week for under $20. Thats maybe 2 meals at a less expensive restaraunt if youre lucky. Epiphany ..i need to take my own advice on the eating...lol good luck to ya and you can do it!!!

Don't panic.  I think all you need is a little consistency in what you eat and, yes, some kind of activity... although gyms are optional...

With your fiance I'd say learn to cook.  It's 100 x easier to control what you eat and how much you eat when you're responsible for preparing it yourselves.  If you eat out a lot you're at the mercy of whatever the chef decides is going in the dish and it's impossible to calorie-count as a result.   A busy schedule means you just have to be slightly more organised and focus on the 'quick and easy' types of foods.   Cook things in bulk at the weekends and freeze in portions.   Always have salads handy and plenty of veggies (peppers, mange-tout etc.) that you can turn into a stir-fry at short notice.   Maybe you could approach it as a team, finding out healthy recipes and cooking them for each other?  It's fun.

Activity-wise that's another thing you can approach together.  You're lucky because you don't have children that need babysitters and your time is your own.  A cheap pair of trainers will mean you can walk around the block or start jogging.  An exercise DVD is very cheap.    Bicycles.... you can pick one up for next to nothing or even borrow one and go cycling.   Second-hand gym equipment will be all over E-Bay in the New Year.  Why don't the pair of you take up ballroom dancing?  Or something fun at the weekends like taking a football to the park?  There are all kinds of activities you can work into your everyday life that don't cost a bean.

well the eating out thing isnt often, its like 2 times a week at most. and i always always always have a garden salad, lettuce,cucumber, tomato..no cheese no bacon no onion(bc i hate it lol) no nothing else..and usually i do get a thousand island on the side, but i dont even use half of it..like and its the small one tablespoon portions. so when i DO eat out, i dont think i have a problem there.. except the random few times i eat some of my fiances side fries.

i havnt really had time to count calories, i motly am on here for support and looking up info. but we know how to cook , but he likes to eat and cook fatty stuff that i dont even like.and were never really home together and i get that its cheaper to cook. we do cook time to time.but usually we buy our own things to make when we need to eat. which is for the most part all healthy on my half..the worse thing is cereal bc sugars..

i have a yoga dvd i hate, so that might be why i havnt spent more money on any other exercise tapes in fear ill waste my $ again. but i think maybe i will try that , i heard there is a walk at home tape that works good for alot of ppl. and i do crunches, lunches randomly thru the house at times. and ill try to more. i dont have a big enough apartment for any exercise equip yet, not until we buy a biggger place.

i bought the hungry girl recipe book and theres alot i want to try. but its just the $ issue...i have my new car i have to pay off,school, and rent/bills so we get pretty little food.. like we get wut we can afford that we will use without it going bad too quickly.

im going to cut out french fries all together...and im going to try to eat some more protien(i hate red meat) so if i cant get in protein ill take my iron supplements.but otherwise i dont know what else to try.

any meal suggestions for like a days worth of food for 1300 calories?

or any other suggestions im not dealing with this well

Free, indoor exercises:

• Jump rope
• Burpees
• Squats
• Push ups
• Crunches
• Stretches

You sound like you eat just fine when you're out, so that's not a problem. Cheap, healthy food:

• Canned tuna
• Walnuts
• Brown rice
• Eggs
• Bananas
• Frozen, bagged vegetables
• Naturally, beans
• Frozen chicken breast
• Fruit in season
• A big ol' tub of oatmeal.

Start buying things wholesale if you aren't already. Learn to love costco and ethnic stores.

You look great to me already, though. You really don't need to be so worried.

You don't have to have "planned meals" that someone else makes up. As a matter of fact with your stated money issues you proabably would have a hard time following a set menu anyway.

It sounds like you just need to start logging what you eat every day to determine how many calories you are eating. It's not so much the source of calories as the amount that you eat that you need to be aware of. this website has so much info on how to count calories. Once you learn that skill it is just a matter of monitoring and being consistent, as gi-jane said.

i agree that if french fries are a "trigger" food for you, meaning when you have one you tend to overeat them, then you may do better with just cutting them out for a while. But it doesn't sound like, from what you said, that you eat alot of junk food in general.

Bottom line...just count your calories by logging your food. Weigh yourself weekly. Be accountable for yourself. I find when people ask me for pre-written menus (I am a dietitian) they are just trying to make me accountable for their success or failure instead of themselves.

You can do it!

well the picture is from July. i need to update that. i know how to calorie count ive been doing it since i lost the weight down to 125. but no matter how consistant i am or how good i do, it seems like nothing happens or i have gained over time. i definitly do want to cut the french fries out.i dont eat alot of junk really. ice cream here and there but always a healthier alternative, and around holidays is harder i have maybe a cookie or two. which is bad.

then if i do want candy. i never never neverrrr have candy bars. i may buy sweet tarts and eat a few, which are high in sugar but not bad to only have a few and low in cals..or fireballs..fat free..lower cal and u dont need to eat like more than one to fulfill the candy urge..i often eat 2-3 apples a day, im just like addicted to apples lol.i use eggbeaters bc i like them better and lower cal...i eat light wheat toast..no butters or cream cheeses..if any..the i cant believe its not butter spray is all i will do. my biggest food i dont get enough of is meats . bc i hate red meat. so i do eat chicken often , just not often enoguh, so i have iron supplements from my DR for that. hmm lets see..idk..

i think i wanna try tuna .. i mean i dont love it. but maybe i can make a meal outta that with something bc tuna is cheap..i buy the steam rice, and steam veggies in the freezer section there pretty cheap and low cal..and healthy with a loottttt less sodium than cans.im gunna work on being more active at home and try to get to walmart after the holidays and buy a exercise dvd..so i can do something at home.

my fiance thinks i look like i did when i was 125 but i wanna scream that he is insane but i guess i would rather him think that, than know how big i am and think abotu that..even tho i no he would still love me..his friends have even told me i look good but knowing how much i gained, and seeing how i dont fit in 60% of my clothes really gets me down.

Like GI Jane said...Don't panic! Perhaps you're not, but your posts sure sound like you are.  You don't have to spend $$ on workout DVDs.  Go to the Fitness forum and look up Melkor.  He can give you all kinds of FREE ideas for working out at home.  If you haven't already, I would suggest going to the local public library and checking out (workout) DVDs.  Even the small town that I lived in growing up had them! It sounds to me like you're trying to target areas on your body to workout--again, I may be wrong, but you mentioned crunches specifically.  You should try to work in some cardio as well as weight lifting. 

Cardio:  Jog around your neighborhood.  Do something fun (like sledding!)  Yes, sledding is GREAT exercise! Make a little game out of getting back to the top of the hill quickly.

Weightlifting:  You can use heavy vegetable cans, or plastic grocery bags with "stuff" in them as weights.  One thing we ALL have is our own body weight.  pushups, wall squats, virtually any calistenic in the privacy of your own apartment.

Many of the previous posters have given you great "food item" tips.  Always check the grocery store flyers in your area for sales.  That's a great time to buy (and freeze) your meats (beef, fish, chicken, ground turkey, etc.) 

Good luck and just go for it!

MJ

You know what I hear about losing weight? That if you lose it too quickly you'll gain it back too quickly.

I've lost 24 pounds since the last week of July to today, SW 168 CW144 Height 5'7. My Nutritionist says I'm doing really good even though I thought I was doing crap, because I wanted to lose like 30 pounds in 3 months, Dare to dream me!! So basically she was like the slower you lose the weight the easier it is for you to keep it off. So now I'm losing like 4 pounds a month, pound a week, and it's not that bad actually.

I don't have a gym membership either, I find that I can work out in my room right beside my bed. I get my heart pumping and sweat drizziling down my back and face, I know that I'm working hard.

I do high kicks in the air ( make sure to stretch before doing this, you'll feel the pain tommorow if you don't), back kicks into the air, I do simulated basketball shots, you know like catching the ball and going straight up and trying to make that 3 point shot ( put some music of your choice on and it'll get the heart pumpin real good)

Grab a stool or small chair and lift your leg one at a time horizontally over it right to left left to right for each leg like 10-15 times each leg 3 reps. Good leg work out there.

Plank position, this is hard, In the beginning I couldn't even last 15 seconds, now I can do just under 2 minutes...it's all mental.

Eating......Just try to eat healthy. Try and stay away from Pop and white rice and Beef and WHITE EVIL BRead/ Pasta. 

You can stirfry some vegetables with some garlic and olive oil...and it taste so good and you can digest it very easily.

My goal weight is 135 and to be a size 4 and have a flat stomach and to have killer legs. I'm gonna get there just not right now.

true i can try the library for dvds. and look up some online....i do do more than pushups...i dance sumtimes for a while, while wearing a pedometer to judge my calories burned..or i do leg exercises and lift 10 lb weights...

i dont do it often enough. but im going to definitly try and get my body doing some more. i would run in place but i live on a top floor apartment above someone..and i dont wanna disturb them b stomping on their floor.

Javagirl20-i know what u mean about losing too quickly. we all wanna lose and the more that we see come off the faster the better we feel. but i would just be happy with ANY progress really! and im not really into pasta much..every rarely..and i eat light wheat bread...IF i drink soda..its diet. but i dont very often..

christmas i didnt count. bc it would be depressing. but i know its one day. and it wont KILL me. bc if i dwell too much on it it will bother me more and more

Do you drink? Major calories in alcohol!!!  I run outside and where I'm from it's -10 and ice and snow, I make it work girl. But if you excercise and don't eat enough you won't lose any weight. And do you eat 4-5 times a day and do you eat within the first hour of waking up, becuase that helps your metabolism for the rest of the day. 

And you know a lot of people are saying never trust the calories that machines tell you you are losing, becuase it's usually false.

What do you eat in a typical day?

I once met a woman and I asked her what do you eat for breakfast she's like I don't really eat that much just a bagel with cream cheese. I'm like no bagel...stay away from the bagel. Than she was like but it was whole wheat and than I said NO BAGEL!!!! Honestly!!!

I read in your profile that you eat out a lot, that's not good. I also read that you have salad a lot but what kind of dressing do you use? If you have salad stick to oil/vinager.

Ice cream I read too,,,,lots of fat.  And don't bother doing crunches right now because it won't result anything because first you have to lose the fat there first if you want abs. 50 situps equals to 10 calories...yeah it's not worth it.

I'm telling you do plank, it really works for your stomach area. I've been doing so much research about this stuff I feel like a nutritionist...but I'm no where near qualified of course, but I'm losing.

I had to eat cheap for awhile, these are my suggestions and all can be used to make go to meals (PS. I cooked for my dad and brother, who love burgers and fries too, so I see where your coming from)

If your grocery store has a salad bar, the cheapest thing EVER is buying spinach or mesculin greens that way.  It waaaay cheaper then buying the bagged stuff (I used to buy 3 of the BIG tins filled with mesculin and spinach and all it cost was like 7$). You can make alot of stuff with this as a base (also you can boil/saute the spinach as a side).

Canned tuna (add nonfat italian dressing and NO mayo) and put it on top of the salad greens with whatever vegetables are on sale that week.  Or on the cheapest whole wheatbread they have (usually about 99c a loaf!!!)

Canned soups (especially lentil, minestrone, etc...things with beans tend to be way more filling, high in proetin, and "manly". Put a little shredded cheese on top and the men think your treating them, its weird)

Eggs and oatmeal (breakfast for dinner is apparently cool, so make 2 eggs and a bowl of oatmeal for each of you and youre only at like 250 calories)

Other staples to buy: brown rice, frozen vegetables, chicken or beef or pork (just buy whatevers on sale, its really not that expensive if you dont buy the "boneless skinless perdue etc..." just buy the cheapest thing!!!)

Hope this helps. I have alot of recipes if you're interested. Message me :) Good luck.

javagirl-when i eat out i always have salad. its not like i have never done all this before and dont know what i am doing. i know how to eat healthy ive lost weight before its just nothing works now or if anything i gain.like with salad...i literally use next to NO dressing. when i am really feeling like something yummie i get thousand island..on the side.. and i prolle use like 1T total...if that. and the ice cream i buy fat freee no sugar added. it taste a lil different but not that much..

ill try the plank.

i need to be able to exercise more and better.. but i am not going outside in this snow. im miserable enough being cold at home... i wont go running out in this. sorry. i am serious about losing weight but id rather run in place for hrs than be outside in the cold.

i have a problem with sweets i think. i mean once a year anyway..for xmas my fiances step dad made this chex mix type thing but it has mini marshmellows melted along with mini mini choc chips and baked. its amazing. but i keep wanting it. its like i dont eat sweets n junk a ton. but christmas ruins me. and the pb fudge. ugh horrible amazing desserts. i no portion is the key and ive been ok..but i feel like i want to binge on it so bad.

ewwwww i feel disgusted with myself again

Something you can do for free to get meal ideas is to go to the library -- browse the cookbook sections and look for books on light cooking, vegetarian cooking, etc or see what types of diet books they have.

If you have a problem going outside, exercise indoors.  Check out videos from your local library or get a free trial from netflix.  My local public access channel shows fitness programs in the morning, you might be able to tape some to watch later.

Ideas for cheap food- oatmeal, frozen and canned vegetables, canned beans, dried legumes, rice, veggie burgers.  Try to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. 

I hear a lot of people say oh it's Christmas Vaca it's ok to go crazy with eathing. I say yeah why not but not about the whole crazy part, eat what you want just don't go crazy with it.

I had to go to this cottage with my family and this other family who owns the place were making Cinnamon buns...big ones. And the mom was like I want to lose 10 pounds by March and I"m like um your not going to get anywhere by eating those things 700 calories each WOW. And she's like it's Christmas. And than I started telling her about my weightloss journey and she was like wow 24 pounds in 4 months amazing. And than the next day they make the buns and she takes them out of the oven 9 on a platter and puts them right in front of me....I was in Shock didn't i tell this lady I was on a journey towards losing weight. Yeah so I ate 1 after resisting for 25 minutes...I just couldn't help it. But she ate 2. So yeah that's a lot.

Maybe you shouldn't be just eating salad. What about protein?

well i didnt go crazy on christmas i just ate some stuff i dont normally...

i had apple before people came over bc we were eating shortly after..soo then i had two 2.5 ounce chicken strips skinless bonless(breaded but the guy who made them is a health nut about breading so it wasnt like way high calorie fat)..1.5 T of instant mash potatos(yeahh they were cheap lol not my choice)..a small roll 1/4 T butter..then 1 or 2 smaller pieces of PB fudge..about a 2in by 2in peice of this chex mini marshmellow mini choc chip baked thing sumone made..then about 4 hours later we went to his aunts..and i had one choc chip cookie..one cookie with the hershey kiss in the middle but it was really tiny..carrots and celery..a small piece of lowfat cheese on a cracker..and i split a slice of a brownie muffin from the hungry girl recipe book i made for xmas with a small amt of green whipped frosting..so i did bad on xmas..but not as bad as last year.

i need more protein and calcuim in my diet..i hate red meat and milk and yogurts..so its hard..an example of a day of me eating would go:

breakfast 9am..Light Wheat Toast*35 cals a slice..sometimes i have 2 slices,with a few sprays of i cant believe its not butter spray..and one eggbeater on top. with a bottle of water

Snack*if i eat a small breakfast like that bc of time, i usually have a snack around 10:30-11am...and its usually an apple and a few mini pretzels..

Lunch 1pm. steamed rice and steam veggies

Snack - apple

Dinner-salad(lettuce,tomato,cucumer,no onion,no cheese,no bacon)thousand island on the side(but i only use about 1/2 T) and then if i have dessert..maybe fat free ice cream

Night snack...if i have one..apple

thats an average idea..butttt seee with holdday food in our house.. or when there is like anything i might crave i sumtimes throw that in the mix bc i do eat more than that in a day..but around the 1300 im suposta have. i think "'grazing" is sumtimes a problem for me.

You should "graze" on some protein!  Do you eat chicken or turkey breast?  Beans? Tuna?  Tofu? These are all great sources of protein.  You should really try to get as much protein as possible through real foods.  Only then should you supplement with a whey protein powder--or something similar.

Girllll you need to be eating way more than that...way more. You need to add protein. If you don't eat enough you won't lose anything. Add more meat to your diet.

Wow 35 calorie bread, I never heard of that the most I ever saw was 50 calorie weight watcher whole wheat slices and they were really small.

You know I was reading a lot about this. There is this body confusing thing people do, where they eat like 1500 calories for like a week or two and than they go and eat 1800-2000 calories for 1 week and that makes them lose weight. I don't remember what they call it though. But a lot of people do it, because the body is so used to a way of eating that when you change it your metabolism rate goes up and you lose weight. I like that.

I read a lot of posts where girls are like I didn't have more than 1400 calories a day for the last 3 weeks and I've only lost 1 pound, well maybe they should be eating way more than 1400 calories.

the sidewalks in my Neighbourhood are covered in ice, so I ran on the street instead, losing weight has no limitssssssssss I"m kidding. It's not a one way street so I saw when cars were coming.

im devestated, i tried on some clothes i had from when i was only like 5 lbs less. and they look absolutely ridiculous. and my clothes from when i weighed 125 dont fit. i just feel ridiculous. i mean some stuff i can stil wear and some i cant. the majority of my weight gain is definitly in my sides of thighs..and my butt. my stomach isnt greeat but like i said, most of the weight gain in below.

hmph i dont know. i just really wanna be back and happy again. its so hard and takes so long. i just dont know where to even begin anymore. i mean its just so depressing and i stress out so much.

javagirl- i do eat more than that its was just a common example.. its just when i have eaten more that 1350 calories(the average amt EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE has recomended to lose weight. and the tools on here even say it too...i gain. so i dont like goin higher.. and zig zagging is what u r talkin about i  tried but thats how i gained and then never lost. so i dont know. im so discouraged