First of all, welcome to the forum!
You will find lots of ideas and LOTS of support here.
However.. this kinda jumped out to me as an excuse..
If I had access to a gym, I'd be working out a lot more and just eating less. Anyway, thanks for the reply, have a good one!
Start eating less NOW and start working out NOW and the weight will come off... There's no such thing as a magic diet that will make you loose TONS of FAT QUICKLY...
Loosing weight is a math game, always has been.. always will be.. no matter what diet you go on, or what gimic you buy into.. its all about math (your 92/99 SAVAB brain should like this next part):
Here's the math... its simple and you probably learned it in grade school:
Calories IN < Calories OUT
There, simplest math you'll ever have to do in order to loose weight.
Here are some tips to get you started.
1) Find out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and Minimum Maintenance Caloric Intake (the minimum amount of calories required to maintain your current weight - this is based off your BMR).
2) Take your Maintenance Caloric Intake numbers and subtract 500-800 calories/day, that will be your WeightLossCaloricIntake number (If you're really over weight and as tall as you say, this should be no problem at all). Eat NO LESS than the WeightLossCaloricIntake calories per day.
3) The WeightLossCaloricIntake value is assuming you dont do ANY exercise (stay at home and sleep all day).. if you do more exercise, you must increase your intake by exactly how many calories you expended (in order to maintain the 500-800 caloric deficit). If you make the deficit too large, you risk some health problems and not having enough energy to function on a daily basis (read posts in Nutrition and WeightLossByExercise forums by Steve - he's covered this topic ad nausium).
4) The larger your caloric deficit, the more you MUST exercise in order to MAINTAIN muscle (otherwise your weight loss will be part fat and part muscle). Strength training is important.. and if you're mildly healthy to begin wtih, there are pleanty of exercises you can do without going to the gym that will mitigate muscle loss while experiencing a caloric deficit.
*) Here's why most of the info above is regarding the CALORIC deficit:
One Pound of human fat, as calculated on the body, is apx 3500 calories.
As with any open-energy system, the more energy you expend the less energy in the system. Thus if your BMR dictates your MaintenanceCaloric intake to be 2800 calories, and you eat 1900 calories, your daily Caloric deficit is 900 calories, and on every 4th day your body will use 3600 calories of stored energy in order to make up the difference. The percentage of BodyFat used vs Muscle used to make up the 3600 calorie difference is where Strength Training comes in.. the more you stimulate muscle to grow, the larger percentage of energy use comes from Fat storage.
There are numerous threads in WeightLossByExercise that give info about the BMR of 1lb of Muscle vs the BMR of Fat (yes, 1lb of fat actually uses energy in order to exist, just like muscle does); bottom line is: Muscle uses MORE energy to exist than FAT does, thus the more Strength training you do, the more Muscle you may eventually have, the more energy your body uses in order to stay alive.
Here's the kicker about BMR and the Caloric Deficit, if you make the deficit too large, your body will slow the metabolism down (research the ACTUAL meaning of Starvation mode - its not a swich, its a gradual process). The slower your metabolism is, the more efficient your body becomes; higher efficiency = less calories used to live. The human body is a self-regulating system of systems. This is why the healthy-recommendations are always to loose-weight gradually in order to keep it off.. trick the metabolism into staying mostly inefficient by using more calories than the body takes in and you loose weight long-term.. suddenly stop the majority of your intake and the body will still use calories - but slower, while slowing the metabolism (read up on the Minnesota Starvation Study - there's a thread in either Nutrition or WeightLossByExercise) - and when you go back to eating your "Maintenance Calories" your metabolism is much more efficient and _stores_ the calories it doesn't use.. which is why starvation diets result in quick loss and quick gains and are generally considered unhealthy due to the plethora of other health issues that stem from self-imposed "starvation".
Wanting to serve your country is an extremely admirable endeavor.
However, no matter what method you use to get down to weight, they will be expecting you to be at your top performance.. which you wont be if you don't drop the weight via a healthy method. If you cut too fast you'll damage yourself when you try to jump into BootCamp.. as they will push you beyond your limits - even for someone who's fully healthy and in pretty good shape to begin with.
Start a diary and spend a few days reading threads start-to-finish. By the end of your first week, if you read and digested every word, you should have a very good idea about what is the "right" way for you and your body to loose the FAT that you want to loose. Weight loss is about eating food that is healthy for your body and LOTS of self-discipline. Its a lifestyle change; pure and simple.. if we were doing it right to begin with - we'd all already be healthy. Trying to drop lbs without learning to eat properly is just..
.
Welcome to the forum, and good luck!
