in all honesty...

[II Laniakea II]

i would feel strange being my average weight.
to be on the cusp of being overweight, i'd have to lose almost 80 pounds. that's almost half of me!

i have always been overweight, but in the last two years, i have packed it on. i was at 165 when i met my boyfriend. and i would like to get back to that and even maybe down to 148 by the end of the year, but that's almost 60 pounds emotion_puke

if i start now, i have to average 2 pounds a week. which is honestly not that hard, i've done it.

but i don't think i would be comfortable being lower than 145. i guess we'll see WHEN i get to it.

any thoughts to this or questions, feel free to post

oh, before i forget, what diets do you recommend on a lower budget?
buying fruit and vegetables everyday gets expensive, and after my share of rent and utilities, i probably have like 200 dollars for food.

my sister went on the atkins diet and it worked for her very well

[Roadside Wildflower]

The FIRST thing to do when you want to start an exercise/weight loss program is to first work at getting yourself to stop gaining weight.

Check out the American/Canadian Food Guide (pretty much the same thing) and follow that. Don't do fad diets, don't over exercise yourself.

Please trust me, I'm studying the human body in university and if you want to do this in a healthy way you want to start by first levelling yourself off. Part of what makes "dieting" so hard for people is the extreme and sudden switch of calories and exercise, etc. Fad diets also don't work (you're very smart so I'm sure you know that already).

If you want more advice feel free to PM me and we can get into specifics a bit more.

When thinking about losing weight:

Step 1 - Start consuming a healthy diet as laid out by the American/Canadian (or whatever country you live in) Food Guide.
Step 2 - Bring weight gain down to 0, while still maintaining proper nutrition (this is where exercise can come in.)
Step 3 - Slowly work into cutting a bit of the excess out, or exercising a bit more, this is when you start losing a small amount of fat every week, in a healthy manner.

[Roadside Wildflower]

Good luck with your choice.

I can't comment on your being overweight without more details that you may or may not consider too private for the public forums so I can't comment there.

[Bunai]

I guess canned fruits and veggies. Depending on what type of store you go to, they have store brand that is cheap and has the same nutritional value etc. You can also freeze certain fruits and they won't lose flavor.

I don't have diet recommendations besides cutting down on portion sizes. Especially when it comes to meat.

[Roadside Wildflower]

There are various ways to fit a healthy diet into your budget, I exist on $50 bucks a week... with every 2 or 3 weeks having me skip shopping... now I am sometimes low on veggies/fruits but that's the sucky thing of living on a small budget like that.

Atkins actually died due to complications with his diet, do NOT use Atkins. Your brain requires carbohydrates, carbohydrates are not some evil thing that makes you fat, they are good and delicious and you should love them in the moderated amounts set out by -Insert Country Name-'s Food Guide.

[Fryderyk Chopin]

Studious_Me

There are various ways to fit a healthy diet into your budget, I exist on $50 bucks a week... with every 2 or 3 weeks having me skip shopping... now I am sometimes low on veggies/fruits but that's the sucky thing of living on a small budget like that.

Atkins actually died due to complications with his diet, do NOT use Atkins. Your brain requires carbohydrates, carbohydrates are not some evil thing that makes you fat, they are good and delicious and you should love them in the moderated amounts set out by -Insert Country Name-'s Food Guide.

To be fair however, in the typical North American diet, we are having much more carbohydrates than we need, unless we're talking about top end athletes varsity and above. I think for a sedentary person, alongside fruits, I wouldn't recommend more than one serving of starchy foods a day. The fiber can come from fruits, vegetables, and nuts quite fine.

[Bunai]

Studious_Me

Atkins actually died due to complications with his diet, do NOT use Atkins. Your brain requires carbohydrates, carbohydrates are not some evil thing that makes you fat, they are good and delicious and you should love them in the moderated amounts set out by -Insert Country Name-'s Food Guide.

He died from a fall, it had nothing to do with his diet.

[Razzly Star]

For myself I discovered a few ways to lose weight (more than 50lbs without exercise), that may or not work for you..

I don't eat fruits or veggies often, so I won't say either way whether or not they'll help, I will say that carrots are a better snack than Three Musketeers (especially now that they ruined them D: ), find veggies/fruits you like and stick to those, don't eat something you hate. I also say not to have big bags of anything, buy the 100-calorie packs for when you decide to eat and watch TV, or just don't eat and watch TV (or when on the computer)

I would recommend Equate (Walmart's generic brand) weight-loss shakes instead of big snacks, they have a good amount of calories (180) and I find them to help with hunger. My favorite is the Vanilla. I say the Equate ones because they're still cans, whereas SlimFast is now bottles (so bad for the environment) and more expensive. Slimfast =$6 for 4, Equate $6 for 6 cans. You can check other stores' brands, but I've never really looked elsewhere.

I also like pudding and string cheese for snacks, as well as Special K bars.

For breakfast, I usually drink a shake (if I'm hungry) or occasionally cereal. There's a brand called "mom's best" I've been seeing in Kroger stores (Smith's Food and Drug, Fred Meyer) that I've seen on sale for $1.50 a box, that I think taste like the name brand cereals they imitate (they have lucky charms, golden grams, honey bunches of oats, and cinnamon toast crunch that I've seen). That should keep you well within your budget.

The way I've lost weight it to replace rather than deny myself food. Instead of buying a burger and fries, I go for a couple things off the value menu, as an example.

If you eat at restaurants often (like I do) make sure to not eat more than half of your serving, take half home, this makes it more cost-effective as well as saving yourself calories.

Also, soda, CANS, not bottles, unless you like diet like I do, otherwise you will find yourself drinking loads of empty calories, cans keep you to a set caloric intake, whereas serving yourself from a fountain, you don't know how many you're really consuming.

Sorry for the wall of text.

TL;DNR
Weight loss shakes instead of snacks and for the occasional breakfast, only eat when you're hungry (not just because you want to), don't drink too much soda (especially not non-diet), and while I won't say to count every calorie, realize that consuming too many won't help you, so realize what it is you're eating too much of and eat less.