Brand new to weight loss

I was brand new to weight loss in January...I've got lots of good cooking ideas, quickest easiest suggestion...try to keep meals to 400 calories or less. It's totally possible to do this, I have a great cookbook, Prevention Magazine's Flat Belly Diet Family Cookbook, and Oxygen Magzine and Clean Eating are both great for recipes in that range. Stick to recipes with a low number of ingredients including a lean protein. And weigh/measure everything! Good luck! I will send you a friend request so I can help you along when I have a little more time...got to get to bed...run at 5:30 am!

Good for you! My advice is to stay away from recipes and stick to basic ingredients. For example, a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter or almond butter is a great breakfast. So is Red River hot cereal or oatmeal. An apple with nut butter is also great. Throwing together some spinach, arugula, or whatever green leaf lettuce that you like and throw whatever veggies you like on it, along with a bit of light feta or goat cheese and some balsamic vinegar. Great for lunch. For dinner, throw a bit of protein like chicken, prawns, or salmon on it. Larabars are natural and around 200 calories each. I keep those in my purse and my desk for emergencies. A dozen raw almonds is a good snack too. Try and fill your diet for the most part with selections from the outside of the grocery store, not the aisles. I think the biggest thing to remember is that life is about choices, and you've made this choice, so you're not missing out on anything. Have fun with it. I've tried lots of veggies I've never had before and mix them up in different combinations. I don't love them all, but I sure like more of them than I used to. Dr. Oz's site is handy - he's big on a high fibre diet and stuff like that. Check out what he has to say. For the most part, I try not to drink any calories. Lots of water or green tea for me. I prefer to save my calories for food, but not everyone does. One exception - I do save up for my Friday night glass of red wine....or two. :-) Cheers.

Welcome to MFP and good job on your weight loss thus far! If you like to cook, I highly recommend some of the Taste of Home cookbooks. They're not that expensive and they list all of the nutrition facts for each recipe. I have a hard time cooking sometimes because when I was taught how to cook, you just threw this and that together and somehow made a meal out of it...hard to count calories that way! The Taste of Home cookbooks made it a little easier for me to plan my meals, especially since most of the recipes were pretty easy and the books are broken up into different sections, such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, etc...

I do live in Joplin. Glad to hear all of your friends were okay. Buildings are replaceable, people are not.