I'm 6' 4 and 240lbs right now, would like to be around 190. I don't know where to start really. Any good resources online I should check out? I'm really looking for exercises I could do at home each day, and affordable foods I should be making instead of eating out so much.

thanks!

Get groceries. Saves money and health compared to fast food.

As far as exercise goes, I'm in the same boat. I know what it takes, cardio, lots of cardio. You have to burn calories and keep the heart rate high. I wanted to buy a nice mountain bike and go riding since my knees arent so great, but considering a nice bike is no less than $500, I will probably end up running. I HATE running, which is why I have put it off...

Also, I'm 5'11 approaching 190ish. Used to be 165

I have a specialized mountain bike my parents got me about 7 years ago. That could work!

As of January 15, I weighed in at 255 (I'm 5'10").

Currently I'm at 219. I'm trying to get around 200, maybe 190 if I think I can maintain it there.

Good Progress! I'm getting prepared to start, the weather is warmed up, time to lose some fat.

Mayo Clinic has a lot of good articles on weight loss and living healthy:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/weight-loss/MY00432/TAB=indepth

6'2" (ish) about 160 lbs. wish I could gain another 10 to 15 of muscle.

One real simple thing to do is to cut out sugary drinks like soda and juice. It can be surprising how many calories one will consume in drinks.

Make an effort to walk places instead of driving is another great way to burn some extra calories. Same goes for riding a bike.

Walking or hiking is great exercise. 300 calories and hour walking at a normal pace. A faster pace means more calories burned. Same for carrying some extra weight in a back back.

Getting started on an exercise program can be the toughest part, particularly if not in very good shape. It can be discouraging to go for a jog and be winded in a few minutes. Doing circuit work can help with this a lot. Jog a half mile then do some push ups, lunges, squats, ab work. Jog and quarter mile, repeat the calisthenics. Four trips through that circuit and you've run a mile. As those quarter miles get easier, you can do more circuits as well as do a a half mile. This requires no equipment.

Ultimately, it's about burning more calories than you consume.

Advice that I recieved from happydud and co (vastly simplified)

Keep a journal! it really helps!
http://fitday.com

Do the Crossfit Workout of the Day! (10 min of the warmup and 20 min of the workout)
http://crossfit.com/

i'm 5'10 and about 140 lbs. I have absolutely no body fat. My face is so thin its possitively skeletal. But thats just the way i am.

I used to try over-eating till i got stomach pains and puked, and didnt gain a pound.

Hunter Gatherer physique for the win anyway

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

6'6" and 150lbs. Yes, I'm a freak of nature.

I am the next step in human evolution.

Fat.

Pasty white.

Lazy.

Eat fewer children.

It's okay as long as they aren't fatties.

RUN TUBBY RUN

6'0" 165lbs

Just eat less.

6'0" 220lbs

Used to be at 280lbs two years ago. I've been slacking a bit lately on exercise, but balancing out with a better food diet. With the summer on the horizon, I'm going to start my annual biking spree if the weather cooperates. Otherwise I'll register at a nearby gym.

Buy a jump rope.

.

There is NoESC if you can't fit through the exit.

[dons flame suit]
My wife has been doing Atkins for the last month and lost 15 lbs. She's now 5' and 105 lbs. This is the skinniest she's been since she was 16 and she looks great If you do Atkins though, you need to eat a grip of vegetables. Don't just eat 5 lbs of meat a day Also, exercise is needed if you want actual muscle not just weight loss.

I'm 6' and 170 lbs. Rock climbing FTW! I build this in my backyard. Just seeing it is a good source of motivation. 12' tall, 8' wide.

I've cut out pizza, chips and other oven-cooked meals. Eating mostly veg and fish now, get a box from graze.com twice a week and the occasionally lightly fried (vegetable oil) or poached egg. I'm doing exercise 5 days a week, either 45 minutes at the gym or 2 hours of ultimate frisbee.

I'm still not losing weight...

This space is reserved for my post. Please do not give up on this thread until my post is read.

Thank you.

Thanks for all the advice everyone, and I will be awaiting your post happydud.

I need to... not lose weight per se (well maybe 10 lbs or so) but make sure I maintain where I am right now. I've never tried to diet because I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't stick with it, (I like food way too much) so I'm trying to balance my diet so that it's a little healthier but I'm still happy with it.

But really I need to start exercising - if for nothing else than the health benefits - and I have yet to find something I'm going to stick with. I'd like to try either rock climbing or racquetball, but I don't know where, and I don't have time or money. Especially not the money.

Rock climbing gym. If you live in or near a city, chances are you have one close by. Usually membership is a lot cheaper then a normal gym.

RAVEN WINS THE THREAD. climbing ftw

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

3 days a week, I do 20 minutes of interval aerobics (usually jogging). When it's raining, I'll use a stationary bike (which I don't really like), or use a 20 minute aerobics video.

3 days a week I do some weight training with a set of dumbbells (to increase muscle mass, which also increases metabolism) - 2 days upper body, 1 day lower body, or the reverse.

6 days a week, I eat 6 small meals a day. Basically I approach food in "portions" - the size of my fist or the size of my palm, whichever is better suited to the shape of the food. For those meals, I'll have a portion of protein and a portion of carbs (avoiding processed foods, and no fried foods). For 2 of those meals I'll have a portion of veggies. In all actuality, I'll usually substitute 3 of those meals with a shake (the Slim-Fast Low Carb variety - it has more protein than the Slim-Fast High Protein shake :huh:).

The 7th day... I don't exercise and I eat whatever the heck I want. Pizza... donuts... chips... anything.

Oh yeah, the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is stagger into the bathroom and drink 16oz of water. Then I'll drink at least another 8oz with every meal (yeah, all 6 meals), so I'm getting at least 64oz of water a day.

Anyway, I've lost 36 pounds, so I know it's working. And that was with a several weeks where I didn't exercise, or I just said "Screw it" and ate whatever I wanted all week (usually due to stress).

lol @ happydud?

If it's a really big problem and you can tolerate the taste, try a grapefruit diet. By and large though, being in a healthy weight should have very little to do with books and specifics. You can try things to make it work faster, but if you just eat less (smaller portions/cut the random snacks/or eat things with fewer calories) and exercise you'll start to lose weight. One helpful thing is to start drinking water, and cut all juices, sodas or beer. You'd be amazed at how many calories you can consume each day just through drinks.

If you have a gym membership, start using it. Cardio work is great for burning calories, and as the name implies is very good for your heart. During school about twice a week I'd play racquetball for a while and then work out on the machines, that way I'd run around for about 45min to an hour and then I'd be able to build some more muscle mass. If you don't have a membership or can't afford one, start doing pushups, crunches, and more importantly running or jogging, as these things are free and tone muscle and burn fat. Plus jogging or even going for a long walk makes you feel better and gets you some fresh air (assuming you don't live in a place like New York City).

One helpful thing you can do to build your arms and pecs (or reduce man boobs) is to make a pact with yourself that every time you enter a room, whether your bedroom or computer room or whatever, you'll do a set number of pushups. I did this for a while; I can only do a max of maybe 20 pushups, so everytime I'd enter or exit my computer room I'd force myself to do 15. It builds your muscle pretty fast.

Edit: Oh! Another important thing to do is wait after eating. Meaning, eat a smaller portion of a meal than you'd normally eat and drink a glass of water. If you still feel like you could eat more, go do something else for 20 minutes. It actually takes a while sometimes for the feeling of hunger to be relieved after eating, up to 20 minutes. After doing this a few times, you'll get a sense of exactly how much you need to eat to be full, which is very useful for weight control and your overall health. Here in America we tend to make all meals platter size or at least bigger than they need to be, and we keep eating because it hasn't caught up with us yet. Traveling to Europe and getting ripped off by miniature coffees and small meals is also a great way to see how to properly portion meals.

Ha! Got you beat. 5'10" and 120lbs. I look anorexic. And yet I just shoveled my face full of pasta and I drank beer. Believe it or not I'm starting to feel a little hungry and I ate 2 HOURS AGO!!! I think for you and I, our one shot at weight gain is through muscle not fat.

And I might get a lot of flack for suggesting this, but calorie restriction has several benefits. More relevant is intermittent fasting.

Calorie restriction, meaning eating a small amount or no calories, can be very healthy for you. People who practice calorie restriction have lower cholesterol, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and BMIs than the average person who doesn't. In addition, it is theorized to make you live longer and retard the effects of aging, specifically memory loss. In several studies using rats, the rats with a deduced calorie diet lived an average of 40% longer than normal rats.

Intermittent fasting means going without food randomly, whether that means not eating every other day, one day a week, or skipping a meal every now and then. An important thing to remember if you do actually take what I'm saying seriously is that anorexia is bad. You shouldn't go without eating more than you go with eating. There are negative side effects from calorie restriction, namely that if you do it for way to long you start to starve. That being said, while fasting (however long) it is important to drink plenty of water and it's better to take vitamins if you're going at least a day.

I started fasting for religious reasons (I'm a Christian). After reading about it in Isiah and in Christ's ministry, I looked it up to see whether fasting is safe and how to do it. It is safe and healthy, as long as you don't over do it. It's good for your body, it builds willpower, and if you're trying to overcome a bad habit or somesuch using the time to meditate on what you want and why (or especially pray, if you're religious).

Edit: Apparently rats that fasted intermittently were also more resistant to gamma rays. ???

But then my dreams of becoming the Hulk will never come to fruition...

Sorry dalf, but Geb has you "beat".

HAHA NOESC IS FAT FATTY FATTY BURGER PATTY

My sister sent me this. It's probably Ould Nuuz, but I still lol'd.

[INDENT] Yesterday I was buying 2 large bags of Purina Dog Chow at Wal-Mart, for my dogs Winston, Chief, Gus, and Maximus. I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. [/COLOR] What did she think that I had an elephant? [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/COLOR] Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her that no I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital last time. On the bright side though, I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms. [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/COLOR] I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and the way it works is to load y our pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.) [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/COLOR] Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the [/SIZE] [/COLOR] dog food [/COLOR] had poisoned me. I told her no; I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt and a car hit me. [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/COLOR] I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard! [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/COLOR] WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore. [/SIZE] [/COLOR] [/INDENT]

walk long distances if you can't run. it helps alot. I got a job which was about 3 miles away, and i didn't have a car at the time, so i walked to work every day. I lost about 50 pounds in a year and a half doing that.

running will speed up the process for sure, but until you lose enough weight so you don't put too much pressure on your knees and shins, just keep at walking, try and walk at least 1-2 hours at a time a day, and try to keep a steady pace. also, get an mp3 player or something so you can kinda tune any pain out.

5'11" and 180 lbs. I could stand to lose 10 pounds or so. I think I'll cut soda out of my diet (I drink way too much) and start riding my bike to work sometimes.

I get shin splints really easily, so at the gym I tend to avoid the treadmill and favour the cross-trainer.

I too get shin splints, I believe. I've never had it diagnosed, but did some research. I probably ought to refine my workout, since it consists of basketball for an hour Monday and basketball for 2 hours Fridays, with no warmups and rarely any stretching. And often on an empty stomache, or nothing but an energy drink. And I usually smoke pot before I play. This is a good routine, right?

You're forgetting the booze.