This is what is working for me. I went to an Endocrinologist and got myself checked out. He found out what was going on with my body and my metabolism. That was the first thing. Fortunately and unfortunately he was a good detective and excellent doctor and found out things that my regular doctor never bothered to check for. He put me on the right medications and he is taking very good care of me. He and his staff including a nutritionist have taught me a lot about what is going on with me and what I need to know about the food I eat, especially carbs, white flour and sugar. He also explained about skipping meals and slowing down my already sluggish metabolism by NOT taking in enough calories and eating the wrong foods.
So this was his advice. Make sure to eat protein within one hour of waking up to kick start your metabolism. Your metabolism needs protein to get fired up just like a car needs fuel to run. Without the protein your metabolism will not start burning off the fat. Calorie counting doesn’t work unless you are watching your carb intake. If you are eating the appropriate amount of calories but they are all the wrong calories your body will store fat instead of burn fat.
When dieting don’t watch the scale because it is your enemy. If you are not going to a doctor who has a bmi scale, then don’t weigh yourself. You don’t know if you are losing water, muscle or fat. You might be very proud of yourself but if you are losing water you will gain it back, if you are losing muscle you are harming yourself and you will replace it with fat and if you gained a pound or two, you will be discouraged and maybe eat less, but that could be a good gain of muscle that you put on through exercise and muscle burns fat. So if you are working with a doctor he will encourage you through the process and help keep you healthy with minor corrections as you go along. If you do it on your own be very careful not to fall into the diet pitfalls like weighing yourself 3 times a day or everyday and then punishing or rewarding yourself according to the scale.