Want a mentor!

arnnap

I'm a noob and want someone who can help me reach my goals. I'd like my mentor to be able to relate enough to help so I'll include a few characteristics of myself: 18, female, goes to gym 5 times a week for at least 30 min - 1 hour, goes to yoga once a week, walks about 9k steps on weekdays, in college, trying to find a job, struggling with junk food, was a dancer most of my life so I don't understand why I'm not skinnier, and I'm 5'4'.
Weights: 155
Goal:125
Other Goals/Sidenotes: I have muscles and flexibility from dance that I would like to maintain and increase, I feel fat from the front and fairly skinny from the side, I am allergic to all seafoods and nuts, I want to do this naturally.

courtneyfabulous

Start lifting weights if you don't already.
You can do less cardio and more weight lifting.

Eat at least 100 grams of protein a day (this is important for retaining your muscles and prioritizing fat loss instead of muscle loss)

Eat in a calorie deficit (not too much though- at or above your BMR and below your TDEE, you can find what these are on IIFYM.com)

Or use the myfitnesspal settings to figure out how many calories you should be eating but set you weight loss rate to 1/2 lb a week or 1 lb a week, NO MORE THAN THAT.

Eat your calories every day- do not try to eat less than your calories- the deficit is included already and eating less is actually worse.

You can still have a little junk food if you can fit it into your daily calories and macros without going over. Try protein bars (clif builders bars are yummy) or protein shakes (I like Tera's whey in chocolate flavor- it's grass fed & organic, sweetened with stevia) instead of candy to get that sweet craving satisfied and get your protein at the same time.

Avoid alcohol as much as possible (it's really fattening and it's toxic effect can slow weight loss for up to 3 days after consuming it)

Try to eat real whole foods as much as possible- snack on fruit, Greek yogurt, veggies, etc.

Get as much sleep as possible.

Good luck!!

courtneyfabulous

Oh and log EVERYTHING you eat/drink. Everything. Be as accurate as possible. Get a digital food scale.

Kmedeiros83

What she said. Welcome and good luck!