New to this whole diet exercise thing

[bruno43]

Hey all Names Bruno, I am 22 years old and tired of being a big guy lol. Decided to try and lose weight and have no idea how to go about it. Hope you all can help me with some feedback.

As of now I am 5'5 260 lbs. I started lifting weights about 3 weeks ago and I only weighed 245 then. I have not improved my diet from normal. I think my problem is only eating one or two big meals a day.

I really do not want to diet, I just want to move my fat around and develop it.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Hellbore]

Hey there, you sound sorta similar to me, maybe a little heavier. I'm new here too but there are a couple things I think I have learned (maybe).

I really do not want to diet, I just want to move my fat around and develop it.

I wouldn't suggest that approach. If you want that fat belly to go away, I think you will probably have to do some kind of diet, even if it's not a very strict one.

IMO, you can't just pig out and still lose weight. The problem is it takes a LOT of evercise to burn off for example, a 600 calorie hamburger. That's like an hour or more of working out. How many hours are there in the day? If you pig out you just won't have time to exercise enough hours to burn it all off. I think the only way you are gonna lose fat is if you eat less calories than what you burn in a day, and the only way to make sure that happens is dieting.

Last year I was lifting weights and eating whatever I felt like eating. I thought weight lifting would make me lose fat. Well, it didn't, because when I stopped to keep track of what I ate, I realized I was eating a lot more food to compensate for the calories I was burning. Sure I was making good gains adding muscle and getting stronger, but my belly wasn't getting any smaller whatsoever and my overall body fat wasn't decreasing. If you want to be one of those fat gym frogs go ahead but that's probably not what you had in mind. We call them frogs, the guys who spend hours in the gym lifting, and have huge muscles and are very strong, but their belly is also huge. They are just like a round ball. There's one in every gym. I dunno about you but that's not what I want. Also my observation is that those type of guys have muscle that isn't very useful in real life. They probably can't even keep up in a friendly neighborhood basketball game. If I were you I would make sure your training improves your overall quality of life, not just your weight lifting numbers in the gym. Some of those gym frog guys have no flexibility.

 

[bruno43]

Hey thanks, appreciate the feed back... any suggestions on what kind of diet to go with? Like I said I usually don't eat much, i just have one or two big meals a day... but those do usually consist of 'what is the closest thing that I can drive to and how much do I have to pay?'

I prolly should cut back on fast food joints, unless its something healthy like... sub way... Way to go Jared! ... But I do not usually have time to cook and my current living situation really harms me from buying and storing food. lol long story.... yet I still have a gym card .

So any suggestions help. I cut back my Sugar drink intake dramatically. I used to drink pop like nothing, but now I get bottles of water or fountain water etc.

Thanks!

 

[Hellbore]

Awesome sounds like you are making a good start by cutting back pop. If I were you I would not drink pop, juice, or any other sugary drink. If you really crave pop I would only drink diet soda that has 0 calories.

I'm not the best person to give any advice about what specific diet though, I just posted my own introduction and someone already told me my diet was wrong So I'm still trying to figure things out myself.

I can tell you some obvious things though, such as, don't eat at fast food places! Even the salads there have crazy high amounts of calories. If you are really stuck and you NEED to eat at a fast food place, I would order a salad and NOT put the dressing or croutons on it, just eat the meat and salad. That's probably enough calories right there. Salads can be so deceiving, for example my friends think they are eating healthy when they get a chicken caesar salad at Costco. Well I looked it up and that dang salad has 700 CALORIES! I might as well scarf down a double cheeseburger! Not worth it if you ask me... 700 calories for a frickin SALAD? BOOOO!

From what I have seen, food you make yourself at home, such as a home-made sandwich, will tend to have less calories than something that looks similar at a fast food place. Like you can make stuff at home with whole grains and low calorie ingredients and stuff. When you buy fast food you are usually getting something that has extremely high calories, like how the hamburger buns are basically cake, and everything has sugar in it these days...lol... very high calories...

Also I am a fan of frozen dinners, since I'm a bachelor and it's hard for me to cook. I like Lean Cuisine and other such frozen dinners that are designed to be low calorie. There are quite a few low calorie frozen dinners out there and you can get some variety.

I also like eating fresh vegetables, most veggies don't have very many calories and they are good for you.

Anyway hopefully someone who knows more will answer your questions, I'm a newbie like you.