Hello, I'm new to using forums like this and hope that it may help me to properly lose weight! I am 22 and have been watching my intake with MyFitnessPal and have lost 5 pounds so far using it. I am currently 235lbs and my goal is 135lbs.

I have been overweight since I was about 9 years old, my grandma would put me on fad diets like slim-fast shakes, isogenix, cleanses, etc... every summer when I went to visit. When I got home from summer vacation after quickly losing weight, my mom would continue feeding me pizza pops and dollar menu fast food and I'd gain all the weight back and then some.

Now that I'm living on my own with a steady income, I have a say in what I eat and am trying to eat better and exercise more. I am optimistic, but also worried about some things. My biggest worry is being left with saggy, wrinkly skin once I lose a certain amount of weight. I'm also having trouble finding good healthy dinners to eat because its only been 2 weeks and I am getting really tired of chicken breast and salad.

Anyways, I've rambled a bit...I hope being a part of this forum will tip the scales in my favour!

My best advice for you is to try to eat organic whole foods as much as you can! Jillian Michael's has a lot of great books that have helped me. My fitness pal has also been a huge help when I am religious about it. Are you exercising? Another suggestion, I'm not sure where you're from, I think Alabama? In NY many of the big supermarket chains deliver now, so this makes it easier to strategize exactly what foods you want coming to your home. Don't keep ANY junk food in the house.

Hi compass1, I actually live in Canada, the AB stands for Alberta! Jillian Micheal's work out dvds were actually one of those things my Grandma had me try one summer, I'm really not fond of her in any way but I'll leave it at that. I wish grocery stores here delivered! I spend my Thursday evenings going over a pile of different grocery store flyers looking for deals and sales on healthy foods

Because you are young, your skin still has it's elasticity and you might not get as much saggy skin as an older person. Eat healthy and exercise, including weight training. Increasing muscle tone will help with loose skin, and the same with not losing too fast. Living on your own will help too because you don't have to keep certain foods in the house for someone else.

Good luck to you, you're on the right track.

Welcome, You'll find wonderful support here

Throughout my weight loss I have been super scared of saggy skin. I am still 30 lbs away from my goal and haven't seen any yet. But I have to remind myself (often) that I would rather have some saggy skin than to still be as unhealthy as I was. As long as you lose weight slowly (I'm talking the normal 1-2lbs per week) then you should be alright.

For healthy meal options I would look online. Skinnytaste.com has some really good creative takes on food. It helps spice up the tiring chicken and salad. MyFitnessPal also has some really good recipes on the website.

Thank you for the welcome everyone! I should have replied sooner but have been very busy lately. So far my weight loss if going good, I'm aiming for 1.5lbs a week so I'm not losing weight really quick. I'm a bit less scared of getting saggy skin now.

If you're not sure what healthy dinners to make, I would suggest going on Pinterest. If you've never been on the site before it can be overwhelming, there's SO MUCH on there! But once you start to get used to it you can find a lot of good things on there. A lot of the recipes are way more intricate and complex than I like to deal with, but there are a lot of easy things on there too. If you search easy healthy recipes (or something similar) you should be able to find something that you would like and that would work for your calorie needs

Good luck!