Newbie from SC!

Welcome! I went to undergrad in SC-where are you? Congrats on finding the website! This is a FABULOUS place! When I first joined back in June, I lost 20 lbs in 8-9 weeks! That's a lot of weight really fast!

I'm not telling you my routine for it to be YOUR routine because everyone's body is different, and my advice might actually hinder your weight loss, so take my routine with a grain of salt (and maybe bring it out the bag when you plateau, which you will so be mindful that changing up your diet and exercise regime is good for your journey).

I began working out while trying to eat less. I saw absolutely NO results even 2-3 months into the regime. I began this website, realized how many calories I was putting into myself and I quickly changed my eating habits. Because I had decided to go on a no carb, all veggie/fruit and seafood/protein diet, I stopped working out. I was eating SO much but was only getting a few 100 calories, so I decided working out would be pointless because I didn't need to burn calories. So, this is what I did:

I would eat apples with peanut butter for breakfast. That would be around 200 calories.
I would eat salad for lunch that was loaded with extras like peppers, mushrooms and maybe splurge with some salad dressing. That would be around 300 calories.
I would eat celery with peanut butter for a mid-day snack and carrots. That would be around 125-175 calories depending on how much peanut butter.
I would usually eat baked fish or shrimp (sometimes grilled chicken) with TONS and I mean TONS of veggies. That would be around 300 calories depending on what I topped the veggies with or cooked them in.

Therefore, each day, I was eating around 900-1000 calories a day. I decided that I was fully satisfied with the amount of food I was eating and couldn't eat more if I wanted-mostly because I was packing myself with veggies that are soooo low in calories. I tried not working out and eating all 1200 calories and I would plateau. For me, it was best to stay around 1000 calories.

I have been plateau since the end of August mostly because I got braces meaning I can't have any of the diet food I was eating-carrots, celery, apples, nuts-it really put a damper on my eating habits. Instead, I now have apple sauce and cheese string for breakfast, a healthy choice for lunch then my famous (for making me lose 20 lbs in 8ish weeks) no carb, all veggie and seafood dinner diet. I gained some weight from Halloween to Thanksgiving, so I decided I'd go back to eating 1000 calories a day. I lost 5 of those 10 lbs I'd gained back in a week (it was probably water weight though).

I say, the best advice I can give, is try new things. Try eating a certain number of calories and working out a certain way, if it don't see results, change it up. It took me a few months to find what worked for me (and everyone is different).

Good luck on finding your niche!

This is all new to me to but you both are very motivating and quite inspirational to me....