Not new! But finally taking this serious! Goal is to lose 20 lbs!

Hey! I'm glad you're here...it says a lot about your character.
I like to eat. No doubt. One of my sayings is, "It's no fun being fat, but it sure is fun getting there."
If you want to lose 20 pounds, you know what to do. Monitor your calories, create a deficit, and you'll meet that goal.

Best of luck. I believe in you.
Brandon

96% percent of weight loss is the calories you're consuming in a day. At least you know that you're overeating and that's a huge step forward. It's tough at first to stay within your calorie goal, and you will get hungry. You'll find as you go along which foods are better, and will start making better choices. As a rule of thumb never eat back more than 1/2 of burned calories, as MFP and other devices have a history overestimating those, and you could end up overeating your workouts.

Good Luck to you, just stick with it and you'll get there.

Remember it's just calories in versus calories out.

Alex,

Heart is correct in that it is a calorie eaten game, treat is as such.....play with your meals in the app before you eat them to see what you can eat to achieve the calorie goal. I typically mock run my entire eating day over morning coffee.

I ran and swam heavily for a year and lost 3 pounds. I scientifically analyzed my diet and lost 20 pounds in 2 months with 80% less exercise. I laugh now at myself b/c I walk the miles I used to run on the beach and know it's more about the food intake. The exercise is still fantastic tho and allows you to throw back more food.

I go for a goal of 2 pounds lost per week. This is a pretty hard cut in my opinion. I'm 6'1 and 207 now and my daily goal is around 1750. THE KEY for me was to KNOW for CERTAIN my weight before I stepped on the scale each day/week. This means you throw out the HOPE and use math to know what your weight is going to be before you step on the scale. This means tracking your exercise and calories. Very simple, but takes logging every meal. Get a GRAM scale and measure your food to the precise gram before you cook it and use that number. KNOW your numbers inside and out! When you jump on the scale you will be within a quarter of a pound most of the time. Master your numbers. This app was huge for me as my excel sheet was getting insane.

If I am hungry as hell I clobber two fresh thinly cut cucumbers and balsalmic vinegar. This is almost a 1.5 pounds and is enough to put you on the couch for an hour. I will also do that with baby carrots. You can eat pounds of these type veggies and put back limited calories. I look for the most physical weight I can put into my stomach with the most limited calories. Lots of lightly steamed broccoli and brussel sprouts. Keep the veggies lightly steamed so you can really chew them and the eating process takes some bodily chewing work. Try eating 400 grams of lightly steamed brussel sprouts in less than 20 minutes lol. You'll be so tired of chewing you won't want to eat for a couple hours

When I feel I need a much more dense meal I clobber a couple microwaved sweet potatoes drizzled with just enough olive oil to make it not dry. Typically a sweet potato weighs 310 grams prior to microwaving, then comes out at 270, but that doesn't matter it is water lost in the cooking process. I don't eat the skin so the 310 gram potato becomes 260 logged in the app. I eat two of these sometimes so that is 520 grams which is a lot but sometimes you just gotta eat

Get a scale
Know your numbers
Make it a game
Eat a ton of colorful veggies(color is polyphenols/antioxidants----research ORAC values)
Keep the fruit/fructose you eat to a minimum, get your micro nutrients with the veggies if you can
Egg whites are fantastic to eat and you can eat a lot of them
Don't be afraid of replacing some fruits with bread or buttered pasta(I used to eat a ton of oranges, apples, and grapefruits and I replaced that with more complex carbs to limit the fructose)

1 pound lost per week is damn good. Never get disappointed with a simple 1 pound week. Hell, I'd high five someone if they had the patience during a cut to be satisfied with just .5 lost per week. I'm not that patient so I play the 2 pound game and eat a ton of veggies and egg whites, and protein shakes. While I'm at a heavy deficit the weight of the food I put down is higher than most people eat in a day eating 3000 calories. Last thing....I used to throw back 4 beers per day making dinner. If you like alcohol which is ethanol it is going to really put a hamper on your efforts. Just seeing the daily intake of ethanol calories for a week got me to quit without a problem. I wish I tracked my calories years ago, I'm an ignorant fool for not doing so earlier. I thought I could run off the beers, foolish me.

Good luck, I've got another 20 to go and I should be at or getting near 10% body fat which is my main goal.

A protein shake that helps you consume 10-20 grams of protein depending on your end day macros would be good for lunch along with a cucumber or two and some carrots drizzled with balsalmic. I used to work in an office for 5 yrs with normal hours and I wish I'd have done this than eaten fries and a steak sandwich 2x a week and who knows what I ate the other days. Some days I would go get a pound of fruit and eat that thinking I was the healthy guy....fantastic for micros but horrible amounts of fructose I was consuming. Hell, why not bring in a sweet potato along with a cucumber and fire that puppy in the microwave then drizzle some olive oil on it with a dash of salt.....your co-workers will think you are a freaking chef lol If you eat 2 cups of water with the protein and a cucumber maybe also a sweet potato you will be stuffed and have done this 10x faster than your co-workers going to lunch. You will also spend less and feel 10x better in a week.

You could also load up on breakfast and do an intermittent fast from morning til you leave work. Then clobber some dinner like a champ. I do that a few times a week. Food is most likely the most important thing you can do each day so take it serious. My problem was I had 75% of the knowledge and still didn't act. Just stupid of me.

Your fitness levels sound great, your running ability is much better than mine! Stick to a sensible calorie controlled diet and you'll be seeing results in no time