hey guys i'm trying to get on a diet that i will be able to stay on.i need help doing so. it's really hard for me to keep up i hardly never eat breakfest or lunch i mostly one those people who eat 3 big plate . i have stop drinking soda or anything that has sugar in it and been trying to drink mostly water. i weighted 261 now 255 by doing that . just need to know how can i make a meal plan to keep up with. my goal is 150. i wanna try and break it down to loose 10 to 15 pounds a month. until i get to my goal. i'm not working right now so i can't go to the gym where i live eventho is 25$ a month. but there is a park here in pr where is kinda like track to walk and jog and run on. its really hard for me to run because i go outtabreath fast. i still haven't start walking because i wanna get shoes. my guess is i could start to walk first then run a bit n so on right? well i hope to get the help i need. thx

Hi Jenni. Welcome to the board. I have a couple of thoughts for you after reading your post.

The first is that I think your weight loss goals are a little too high. I have found that when people set goals that are too high, if they don't meet them, they tend to give up and quit. 10-15 lbs a month MIGHT be too much. Ideally you should lose around 1% of your total bodyweight per week on average. Which means that you could expect to lose around 2.5 lbs a week. Now at that rate, you're right around 10 lbs a month, but I don't want you to get disappointed and quit if you don't hit that. Make sense?

Ok, the next thing is that you really should work on eating more than one meal a day. I think what happens to a lot of people when they skip meals is that they feel like they've "saved up" and then they go all out at dinner. Or they are so hungry by dinner that they eat more than they should. I find that for me, it's easier to manage my hunger if I eat regularly throughout the day - breakfast, lunch, and a couple of snacks. Then I'm not ravenous by dinner and eating everything in sight.

Finally, I think you should definitely start walking. Don't worry about starting out running yet ... just walk briskly until your heart is beating fast and you're breaking a sweat. As you get more in shape, you can add in some running. I started training to run a 5k race about 2 months ago and I still can't run the whole thing ... right now I run for 5 mins and walk for 2 mins and then run for another 5 mins at a time. For you, start out slowly and then add in 60 seconds of running as you can. Then you can add more and more and more ... it's much better for you to build up than to just jump in over your head.

Hope that helps you some!

you are making it far more complex than it needs to be...

First off start reading the stickied threads, especially in nutrition.

Set a reasonable calorie goal for yourself and keep track of what you are eating.
PLan your meals out in advance, that leaves you wiggle room for treats and other stuff yu might want during the day.

Learn what a portion is - do not guess - be accurate..

and take it one step at a time

you didn't get to 260 over night -you won't leave it over night -common sense and educating yourself will take you from there