((((( Important Note: if you're already really skinny and have no muscle, you should work on gaining muscle first. Eat a lot of protein and Complex Carbs, and follow either Stronglifts or Starting Strength for a lifting routine. )))))

I lost ~25 lbs in the past 4 months or so, most of which was fat. A few basic tips for losing fat efficiently:

- Eat few carbohydrates per day, but in particular, try to avoid all Simple Carbohydrates. This includes any food with processed sugars, white bread, sugary cereal, fruits and fruit juices, soda, etc. For the sake of efficient fat loss, though, you should even be minimizing or outright avoiding stuff like rice, whole wheat grains, etc, which contain Complex Carbohydrates. The type of carbs you DO want to eat is any vegetable. Eat as many veggies as you can (don't worry, I don't eat that many myself). The stuff containing Simple Carbs is extremely crucial to avoid though, probably the #1 most important thing. Get in the habit of checking nutrition labels - if you see a high number next to Total Carbs, avoid it.

- Eat less per day than you normally do, or are used to doing. You can go nuts with tracking calories against your maintenance calorie level, but that's not necessary. If you learn to tolerate the sensation of hunger to a small extent and have a plan about your meals, you can easily eat 500-1000 fewer calories per day than you're used to eating without making calorie tracking your life.

- Work out in the morning before you consume any calories (black coffee or water is fine). Lifting weights and/or doing cardio on an empty stomach forces your body to consume bodyfat for energy. It honestly doesn't matter a whole lot what type of exercise you do as long as you do it at least a few times a week and for 15 minutes at a time or more. If you follow the two dieting guidelines above and do this as well, you will lose fat very efficiently.

- Synergizing with the above tip of working out in the morning on an empty stomach, condense all your eating per day into an 8-hour (or smaller) window from roughly 1pm to 9pm. This is called Intermittent Fasting, and it helps quite a bit when losing weight. If you're having trouble with feeling hungry in the morning, try drinking black coffee (minor appetite suppressant). (I also take a Fat Burner in the morning as well, which does 3 things: 1. suppresses your sense of hunger 2. gives you a mental boost via caffeine 3. elevates your metabolism to increase the amount of fat you burn.) It is important to be able to power through those patches of hunger - those are signs your body needs energy and is probably consuming bodyfat to get said energy. I have personally conditioned myself to half-love the sensation of hunger because I know my body is working on my behalf for fat loss.

- If you're pretty new to fitness or exercising consistently, I strongly recommend 1. doing exercises that you actually enjoy, as the type of exercise doesn't matter much for you right now - working out consistently is the most important thing 2. writing down in a small notebook your exercises while you are doing the workout - the type of exercises, the amount of repetitions, the amount of weight, etc. Try to increase the difficulty or intensity of the exercises steadily over time. If you write down your workouts diligently, you will see a concrete, irrefutable record of progress in your fitness level - which will hold you over in motivation until you start seeing noticeable changes in your body. Writing down my workouts in a notebook the first few months is simply what worked for me in instilling in me the Exercise Habit.

- Create a plan for what foods you'll be eating a lot of so you're not just winging your food intake every day (which leads to sliding off the diet). For example, some of my mainstays for good quality but low-effort calories are part-skim cheese sticks (highly recommend these as a snack / mini-meal), whey protein mixed with water, and turkey/ham/pastrami cold cuts. You should be eating a healthy amount of meat in general.

- Last tip is ABSOLUTELY do not consume anything besides water after 11pm or so! I have found every time after having a cheat midnight snack that my body stored the entire thing as bodyfat overnight. If you're like me, you'll have strong midnight snack cravings -- you must learn to fight these off, period. Stick with a rough Intermittent Fasting schedule and you'll be golden.

These are some basic guidelines a novice can start implementing right away. Happy dieting!