I need help..

First of all, well done on your weight loss. Keep doing the weights and walking as it's clearly working for you. As for meal choices try baked potato/sweet potato with a healthy filling like baked beans (protein), tuna or whatever you fancy. You can do them in the microwave so you could take one to work. For a sandwich I would also count the cals if you use butter/mayo or any other spread. Do you eat the same meals everyday?

SteadyHaze wrote: »

I'm kinda lazy and cheap when it comes to making food... I wish I could find some simple easy recipes or just buy prepackaged food..

You have to make your own food so you can eat more, more delicious, cheaper and less calories... you will see...

You and I are almost exactly the same size. Your weight is closer to ideal especially if your photo is actually of you and you look to be in pretty good shape already. The lunch part is easy, I pack a lunch everyday. Eventually you will learn to read labels and eat the serving size listed on the packages. Log all your food including your condiments into the MFP App to track your calories. Don't cheat yourself and it's really quick and easy after about a week of logging using the app. You need to be very consistent in what you log. Buy a digital food scale and some measuring cups/spoons. After awhile, you'll learn what a proper portion size looks like. Here's a decent lunch. Make a sandwich on wheat bread. Use ham, turkey or both...or peanut butter (good protein source) and natural jam/jelly. Measure your portions. Toss in an apple, orange or banana. Add one cup/container of Chobani Yogurt. Add some carrots or celery. A 3oz serving of baby carrots is 35 calories approximately and it's very filling. Bring some protein powder in a small shaker cup and add some water for a mid-day snack. Every few days I sub in some cottage cheese in a small container (1/2 cup serving size), maybe grapes or celery with peanut butter. You'll take in roughly 450-600 calories for this meal. I like the eggs for breakfast, keep up with that. That is a great source of protein for a weight lifter but ditch the sandwich part. Pick up some chicken sausage links to help reduce fat and heat those up in the microwave. Sub in hot oatmeal, peanut butter toast, fresh fruit, (small 4 oz cup of juice once a week), protein shakes, smoothies, healthy cereal with almond milk, whatever else that is a healthier option for breakfast. Once in awhile you can bring along pre-made soup in a cup and just add hot water. You can microwave water and put it into a small thermos, it will actually stay hot until lunch. Then mix it together at lunch time. Just watch the sodium level on that type of stuff so spread those out a week. For Dinner I look at whatever calories I have left and sift thru the fridge until I find some combination that both sounds good and fits into my allotted calories for the day. If you have a bum leg, weightlifting is a great alternative to cardio for weightloss. Your body will continue to slowly burn off the calories as it recovers from lifting. If you can't do much cardio at all then you can circuit lift, meaning moving from machine to machine quickly with few breaks. Use lighter weights and higher reps. After 10 mins your heart should be pumping and you can work thru all muscle groups without doing much damage. You'll be surprised at how strong and fit you can be using that method. If you manage your calories carefully at a slight deficit and you feed your body back some or most of the calories you burn off you will lose weight. Calories in/Calories Out. The last 15-20 pounds is very, very difficult to lose and will take some time. If you can lose 1 pound a week at the very end consider yourself lucky. Lifting weights will help transform what you see in the mirror as well so you may not notice that leftover fat.

There is another possibility in that what you think is fat might be skin or it can also be a type of fat that the body cannot process and burn off. There is a name for it but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head. A friend of mine had that problem and had to have some liposuction to get rid of it.

Some other issues you were having involved being hungry by dinner time. If you are getting hungry you should increase your protein intake all day starting with breakfast which will curb your appetite some throughout the day. You may have to plan on eating two smaller meals at work for those long 10 hour days. You might have to eat a lighter breakfast to get yourself out the door then start eating one of those meals 3 hours into your day and space them out. If you get hungry, there are great foods that are filling that don't have a lot of calorie penalty. My go to is baby carrots mentioned previously. Hard boiled eggs was a really great suggestion. Protein and fiber foods like apples and peanut butter really help as do protein shakes.

If you want a beer after work, enter just one beer into your snacks part of the app right away in the morning then plan your meals accordingly throughout the day and save those calories for yourself when you get home. In reality you should stay away from beer as it contributes directly to the gut factor in a big way. But if you have to have it, then have it. I plan ahead if I know I'm going out to dinner and even shop the menu items online and pick what I want to eat, then fill in other calories as the day goes on until I'm all out. It's no fun when you go to a restaurant and can't eat what you want because you didn't plan for it.

Also, buy a couple protein bars and keep one in your lunchbox but don't plan on eating it unless you've got no choice or you work later than expected. Unfortunately that protein bar will become part of your caloric dinner plans.

Most people have indicated the supplements are crap and not to take them. I did try to take supplements to burn fat and can say that they did nothing except freak out my liver. My liver enzymes went crazy and when I quit taking the supplements to burn fat, my liver was fine and the number came back great.

It doesn't really sound like what you're eating is that bad. I would however take the time to log everything. Good, bad, ugly, whatever. Whatever you eat goes on the food log. That way you know where to start making changes - whether to increase protein or decrease carbs or find better types of carbs or increase fiber, - whatever.

Last - make sure you hit your water intake. That'll really help a lot.