Hi, and welcome to the forum
Congratulations on working on your health at a young age.
The first thing you need to do is work out your calorific needs for your height, weight, age, and exercise. Weight loss is about eating less calories than your body is burning. Try this website: Aim at weight loss of 1-2lb a week (possibly up to 3 given your current weight, but that will decrease as you lose weight). Stick to a figure for your weight loss (so for example, my figure to lose half a kilogram a week is 1776 calories, so I aim at that. I personally work within a range- what it would take for me to lose a kilogram a week to half a kilogram, which for me is 1226-1776, but you need to find a way of dealing with it that works for you).
Whether you want to track that exactly (I do, Ninja does, others don't) or whether you just want to be aware of the calories in certain foods (the internet is great for that- you can google almost any sort of food and get a nutritional breakdown, from apples to bacon to chocolate)
This is going to get repetitive a bit, but the answer to a lot of your questions is "whatever works for you". There are probably small nutritional reasons why some doctrines like "eat 5 meals a day" "eat certain foods at certain times" "exercise at this time not that time" etc are better than another approach, but a weight loss plan you can stick to is better than one you can't stick to. (I've followed pretty much nothing in the way of "rules", apart from calories and nutrition, and I've lost 7kg- nearly 15.5lb- in 7 weeks)
Here's a simple guide to nutritional guidelines in England: (or find something similar for your own area) I personally don't eat as much grain/ starch as they recommend and supplement it with vegetables.
I would emphasise that given your age, you're still developing and/ or growing, and so you need to be really careful with diets. Don't slash the calories too far and be careful to make sure you get the nutrition you need. Your brain and bones don't stop developing until you're about 25, and cutting down too far could play havoc with your development, which could lead to long term health consequences. If you can, check your diet plan with a doctor.
Should I try to eat 3, 4, or 5 meals per day?
Whatever works for you. Personally I have 3 meals a day and I snack a lot. As long as the calories work out and you're happy about what/ when you're eating, it's fine. Some people need to eat regularly (my blood sugar drops if I don't eat every 2-3 hours), some people don't.
How large/small should each meal be and what type of foods should I eat during each meal?
Whatever works for you. Seriously, as long as the calories add up and you're eating reasonably healthily, knock yourself out. Find things you like, that are healthy, that fill you up. I find higher protein foods keep me fuller, so I'd recommend that, but it's a "this has worked for me", not a
rule. I'd also recommend for nutritional reasons having fruit and/ or vegetables every time you have a meal (also for calorie reasons- most fruit and vegetables are very low calorie density).
Eat as much home-prepared food as possible. (Count fats/ oils used in cooking in your calorie count- and as such try to limit those to the extent you can, they're generally very high calorie) This doesn't necessarily have to be boring- if you check my diary I make new and interesting things all the time (including low calorie pizza. Yes, you can eat pizza on my kind of diet). Processed food is more difficult to account for and is usually loaded up with something bad (sodium is particularly something to watch out for- it doesn't affect calories, but it can be damaging to your health). Given your age, if you haven't already, learn to cook before you move out. You'll thank me in a few years (I moved out of home nearly two years ago knowing very little about cooking, and it was a very steep learning curve). I'm happy to offer advice/ tips on where to get started there.
I really dislike most vegetables outside of corn, peas, potatoes, and green beans. Would I be able to get by with only these vegetables or some alternative? If it helps any, I've liked most fruits that I've had before
The more variety you have the better it is nutritionally, but as long as you have sufficient fruit and vegetables (for the purposes of nutrition potato isn't a vegetable by the way, it's a starch like bread, pasta, or rice) and other food types, do/ eat what you like. Try to eat at least 5 servings of 2.8oz (I converted from grams- 80g) of fruit and vegetables a day (ideally don't count dried or juice- although if you count dried, 1oz is a serving, but max 1 serve of dried a day counts). Try to eat more vegetables than fruit. (The serving recommendations are the nutritional requirements for England- you can also look to what nutritional/ medical bodies recommend where you are)
I'd encourage you to try different things and cooking things in different ways to see if there are things you like that you previously didn't (for example, if you've only had boiled vegetables... yeah, that's disgusting. And I love vegetables). Taste buds change- I remember when my siblings were younger that pumpkin would make them want to vomit (seriously, it'd get put on their plate and they'd start gagging) and both of them decided somewhere between the ages of 15 and 18 that they now liked it (I'm 25, my youngest sibling is 21). If you've ruled out something more than a couple of years ago, I'd encourage you to give it a go again. (Also, for cooking techniques, try steaming- if you don't have a steamer, chop up the vegetable into small bits, stick in a microwave safe container with 1-2 tablespoons water, cover, and microwave until slightly soft but not mushy- or sauteeing in a low cal cooking spray) But if you still don't like things, that's ok, as long as you get enough vegetables in your diet.
How long should I wait in between each meal?
Do what works for you. Depends on how filling you find food and your schedule. Snacking isn't the devil, as long as it's healthy and fits into the calories. I find it easier to stick to my calories if I have more filling meals and wait, but it depends on what you eat.
When should I exercise? I was planning on one in the morning and one at night but I do not know what is the most beneficial.
Do what works for you- I like to exercise when my brain is relatively focussed so I get more (physically and psychologically) out of exercise. As a night owl, I tend to prefer exercising in the mid-afternoon. If you're a morning lark, exercise first thing, if you're a night owl, find a sociable hour (sadly, exercising at 1am is a bad idea
) where you feel awake and alert and exercise then. Also depends on your schedule.
Exercising twice in one day is probably overtraining, depending on what you do, but I'm not terribly knowledgeable in that area. Don't overtrain and hurt yourself- you're better off exercising moderately for two months than exercising really hard for two weeks, injuring yourself, and not being able to do anything for six weeks.
(continued in next message, I wrote too much)
