It's actually pretty simple, don't listen to those [censored] diet plans, like a nut diet and whatnot. You want a balanced diet.

1. Stay away from sugar and don't eat alot of bread. Eat fruit, vegetables and protein (nuts, meats, etc). And when I say stay away, I mean completely remove them from the house.
2. Eat 4 small meals, rather than 3 big meals, this makes you less hungry through out the day and less likely to binge on chocolate and whatnot.
3. Limit most of you liquids to water.
4. Run. Start with a slow jog or even a walk for about 15 minutes, move it on from there. I usually run 3 miles twice a week.
5. Take up a sport, maybe play basketball at the gym with your friends once or twice a week. 2 years ago I was at about 35% BMI (fat to weight and height), since I've started wrestling I've gone down to 15% and lost about 30-40 pounds (185-155), and that still fluctuates daily, I've seen wrestlers lose five pounds of pure weight, not water weight, in two days to make it into a different weight class. It's all about determination and a having a goal in sight.

Health is comprised primarily from two factors:

1. Quantity of Calories
2. Quality of Calories

Quantity of Calories is a target that is based on your gender, weight, height, age, and activity level. Most people are going to be around 2000 calories as a daily requirement (my personal requirement for weight maintenance is 1850, anything less will result in weight loss and any more will result in weight gain).

Quality of Calories. Your body has specific nutritional requirements that must be met, and certain limits that should not be exceeded. Some of these limits are based on quantity of calories (soft limits) while others are static (hard limits). Some requirements have both soft and hard limits (Sodium, for example, is limited to 1mg per calorie, up to approximately 2300mg, meaning a person who consumes 1700 calories would have a lower 1700mg Sodium limit).

When planning your diet, you need to ensure that the quantity and quality of what you are eating is appropriate for your goal.

All Carrot diet and lots of hopping.

I have the exact opposite problem, I'm thin and don't know how to bulk up.

I have to smile because I was thinking exactly the same thing yesterday. All the advice conflicts - do this, no don't do that - in just about every category.

I'd have to go with the Japanese advice above. Stop eating if you're not hungry.

Yep, I am trying to get away from doing this, and it's difficult. Gum helps, I find.

Calisthenics have worked great for me, mostly because I enjoy them. I used to do strength training and a bit of bodybuilding work, and the strength training worked wonders. However I could never quite get into bodybuilding, it just hurt too much.

Time under tension is what you're after, it'll lead to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (increase in muscle mass essentially). It hurts like you won't believe though, not everyone realizes how hard you have to push and how focused you have to be if you want actual results, not pseudo results.

I have heard that your results are 80% diet, not 90%, but that is irrelevant.

Anyway, the only way to lose weight is to create a caloric deficit. The breakdown is not as important, especially if you are overweight. If I were you, I would find out your body fat percentage, and use that to find your lean mass. Eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass. Other than that, just eat enough to create a caloric deficit of 500-1000 calories (you will lose 1 or 2 pounds a week if you are consistent). If you drink a lot of calories (soda, iced tea, sweetened coffee etc...) then cut those out immediately. They are a complete misixpenditure of calories and do not even keep you full. Also replace white breads and pasta with whole grain bread and pasta.

As far as working out goes, do not jump right into a workout program. For a few weeks, just go for walks, stretch, and just generally try to be more active. Start adding in cardio, calisthenics and light weight lifting.

And good luck with losing weight. It is good to see that you are serious about losing weight and getting healthy. Too many people want results but aren't willing for a second to put in any effort into doing so.

Sadly, I say it more out of selfishness, due to reasons of liability and personal protection when it comes to health and physical wellbeing of other forumgoers. A person asks a question like "Hey, how do I fix up my computer," that's a question which can be reasonably answered with a person undertaking monetary risk of their own volition with little to no harm to their health. Dealing with exercise, "should I get this looked at," I need advice cause i'm having nervous breakdowns, and other comments along those lines are where I have to agree with others that it is rather difficult to offer up suggestions because if a person exercises wrongly or decides to take vitamin supplements, that's a risk to their health and physical wellbeing that can have dire ramifications. Though it maybe considered stupid, a person can OD on iron pills.

Another reason for seeing a nutrionlist and, as said, event better a doctor, you can determin if the overweight problem stems from something different, instead of just "overeating and/or inactivity."

... Nothing good ever ever comes from eating one stuff or another. Those sites are contradictory for a good reason : diet fads are bloody silly.

Common sense : eat a bit of everything in moderation, cook from scratch rather than eat processed/prepared stuff.

*shrug* Beyond that, try stuff that sates easily, like apples. I doubt they're very caloric.