Ok, so I'm sure that I'm not the only person like this.

I am overweight. I currently weigh 280. I don't look like it. Most people that meet me are obviously aware that I am a bit overweight, some might call me "husky", but at 280 pounds, I am most certainly more than husky. It's because I carry it well, have a bit of muscle on me as I used to work out daily 4 years ago, and I wear slightly baggier clothes as to hide it.

But the fact is, I am overweight.

Now, how do I go about fixing that? Well, I have motivation and a will to do so. I have a gym membership. But as MANY fitness experts and actors will tell you, losing weight and getting in shape is 90% your diet. If you don't eat right, no amount of exercise will benefit you.

Now, this is where my problem is. I want to eat right. I am willing to eat right. But due to the VAST amount of contradictory advice and facts on the internet and EVERYONE you ask, I have NO idea what is actually good to eat and what isn't.

One site says eat fruits.

Other site says stay away from fruits, they're horrid.

Next site says eat high carbs and low fat.

Another site says avoid carbs and get a lot of good fat.

This.
That.
WUT.



Do you understand my problem? I do not KNOW what to eat. Every single source is different. One site says EAT MULTI GRAIN FOODS AND WHEATS! And then the next says "OMG AVOID ALL WHEAT THAT'S WHAT THEY FEED COWS AND YOU'LL JUST SKYROCKET YOUR INSULIN LEVELS AND YOU'LL DIE OF DIABETES. DUH.

Please, kill me.

Eat fewer calories than you're burning at the gym. You should lose weight

No food is "horrid" for your diet. It's all about proportions, hence the food pyramid. Aside from that, the only rule you need to follow is "don't eat more than you need to" which basically means counting your nutrient intake versus you caloric intake and making sure you don't exceed your recommended daily maximums.

Once you do that, then exercise regularly. A lot. It'll be slow at first, but if you just make it a regular routine then you'll start losing weight without even watching.

I've lost 8 pounds in the last week just by cutting out fat food and having fruit for lunch and then either a salad, or chicken and rice for dinner. I've also stopped eating late at night and I'm eating dinner earlier.

Cut out snacks, eat more fruits and veggies, eat less, no fast food (McDonalds, Burger King, and etc), stay away from greasy deep fried foods, and work out by doing cardio workouts (high reps, lots of moving, and such). Cutting out alcohol is also a great idea. Swimming and intense cardio workouts should burn much much more than just lifting weights.

Also, if you're building muscle, you'll probably end up gaining weight as muscle is heavier than fat, which happens to me as I am doing P90X with a focus on muscle mass when those exorcises come up, even though I'm getting thinner.

Eat a balanced diet, everything in moderation. How can some people not understand this?

You'll just have to figure out what works for you personally. Everyone's body is different and responds differently to treatment. There's no super effective one-size-fits-all strategy but there's always helpful general advice. Just try to stay away from the instant gratification stuff that just makes you lose a bunch of water and whatnot.

A) Because people know it but don't do it
B ) When people are left to themselves to judge what moderation means, it invariably fails. That's why calorie counting, Weight Watchers etc work - they tell you exactly how much of things you should eat

Losing weight is simple. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKs0oEIVOck and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp_v9cWh07o

What you eat doesn't really matter, as long as you don't eat too much of it, don't snack a lot and don't eat too much fast food. If you take things in moderation you can eat anything without getting fat.

Consume less calories than your body needs to maintain its weight. You can use an online calculator to find out how many calories your body uses daily (Note, TDEE is different than your BMR. BMR (basal metabolic rate) is how much you would burn if you just laid in bed all day. TDEE is how much you burn by doing your daily activities)

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

For example, my borderline-overweight 190lbs, 6'2 frame needs roughly 3000kcals a day to maintain itself. However, I run 2-4 times a week and probably walk 2-3 miles a day just walking to/from classes.

Despite what people may say, counting calories is beyond easy, provided you eat stuff that has nutrition facts easily available.

Edit: While it isn't a good idea to eat poorly, ultimately whether or not you will lose weight depends on whether or not you take more calories in than you burn. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html?hpt=T2

it's just common sense. Things that make you fat = probably not a good idea to eat a lot of them. Weight Watchers is a waste of money. Don't eat massive portions of things, keep the sugary/fatty foods to a sensible minimum, eat a balanced variety of foods, don't sit on your [censored] all day, badabooom badabing I just saved you hundreds in Weight Watchers membership fees.

I can tell you from personal experience that's not true. When I hiked 90 minutes a day after work or swam a mile a day after work I was rail thin. I also ate anything I wanted at the time. As soon as I stopped the daily vigorous exercise the weight started creeping on. To counteract this I began eating a moderate, balanced diet (not "anything I wanted" as before - just a decent amount of calories from all sources) and began walking briskly for a half hour a day. Once again I got slim. I didn't need a gym membership to do it nor did I need to obsess over everything I put in my mouth.

This will cover all the basics for you OP, hell it'll probably be everything you need because it's really not complex at all.

http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html

Yes. I remember seeing a dieting advert and, whilst its overall content was overall (the diet abysmally bad), it's opening line was brilliant: "We're all making this too complicated". The fact is that people in the past never dieted, yet obesity was unheard of. It's simply!

Find out how many calories you consume in a day through food and how many you burn through exercise. This can usually be found on the packaging or through Google.

Eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight.

Eat more calories than you burn to gain weight.

Eat the same amount of calories as you burn to stay the same weight.

That's it!

Not true. People I know eat awfully, with regular fast-food, but do so much exercise that they still remain slim. Remember that being health and being a healthy weight aren't directly the same thing. You can have fat clogging up your arteries from poor diet, but not actually be overweight.

What's the "not true"? That's basically what I said. Reading comprehension...

Perhaps he's trying to emphasize the fact that you were just burning more calories than you consumed. You didn't gain weight because the exercise increased your TDEE and thus even after eating whatever you still didn't eat enough to gain weight. The diet portion still decided whether you gained or lost weight, you just exercised to the point that your dietary choices didn't make up the difference.

Just set yourself a strict routine and follow it. If you don't feel like doing it, you make yourself anyway - it can be a hard mindset to get into.

The tip I have for that is the five second rule. Don't want to get out of bed in the morning? Count to 5 and when you reach 5 you just do whatever it is you're putting off, if you don't, then there is no 5 second rule. You'll have failed at life as you can't even control yourself, that is how the 5 second rule works.

As for the routine, walking is a great start. Go walking for an hour a day, keep that specific time as it'll help speed up the progress. As it starts to get easier, perhaps you pick up the pace a bit. Eventually you're jogging. What you might not realize is that it's supposed to be tough, you're not supposed to have fun pushing yourself. There is a certain joy to it for some, including myself, however it isn't necessarily fun.

I hope this helps at least a little. (Oh and remember to have a healthy diet - but I'm no nutritionist so I won't give any advice on that)

EDIT: Heh, read your post and realized you wanted nutrition advice. My advice on that is to just eat what you know is good for your body. Don't get caught up in foods recommended specifically for fat loss or a strict diet. Just eat what isn't crap and over time you'll loose weight and get healthier.

The term "anolysis paralysis" is commonly used in the fitness industry as loads of people get caught up looking for that perfect path to their target. When really, they should just be making progress towards it instead of putting it off. Who cares if there is a faster way to achieve weight loss? All that matters is that you achieve it. So my advice is to not fall into that trap and just start working away at it. As long as you're making progress you have everything to be happy about

Kinda what I've been doing. Walking for the past week, its starting to get a bit easier to walk an hour on the nature trail with my girlfriend every day. Eventually I may move to jogging if I feel like I can handle it.

There really is no easy way to go about it by eating some "magic foods" or BS like that, neither is it possible to do it by avoiding certain foods. Only way to do it is eating in moderation (or eating less while you want to loose weight THEN eating in moderation to maintain your level of fitness). Your body needs carbs, and sodium and fats and calories all the time, it just needs less of them all. So feel free to eat from all the food groups, just eat less from each. It's really hard at first but your body adjusts surprisingly quick and soon you'll find you need less food than before. Also stay practical; to avoid eating desserts remind yourself they won't fill you up anyway and you'll just stay hungry, eat foods that make you feel full quick and contain the same amount of calories.

Just...eat less than you burn off and you'll lose weight. Being healthy is different to being slim, and there's a lot that goes in to having a balanced diet with good nutrition. But if you eat less than you burn off then you'll loose weight, no matter what that food is. Going to the gym is more about building muscle and being physically fit, the actual calorie burning in a workout is usually pretty low. It's much easier to just not eat that 400 calorie cake than to burn it off.

Eat dem leafy greens.

I would say see a nutritionist first, or even better, see a doctor. Can't speak for others, but i'm not in any position to claim I have competent knowledge to comfortably give out advice on weight lose if you say you are 280lbs and overweight, OP.

Fruit salad.
Spaghetti.
Water
Milk

Go for a run.

Just run up and down the stairs in your house a few times. And improve on how many times you can do so each time.

Thai-Boxing for me's great. I was never overweight, but I look toned now, instead of a strangely thin blob.

Cut the carbs.