General / Off-Topic I want you to be brutally honest with me.

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Hi Un1k0rn.

In the past I was in rather the same situation as you, so I'll share my experience in hopes that it might help you as well. Several years ago I hit 280 pounds, when I finally realized I had to do something about it.

The good news is, you don't need to suffer and your situation is totally reversible without any drastic measures, as long as you have a little patience and assume you won't get "into shape" quickly. My personal case, I'm lazy, I hate vegetables and never was much for long exercise sessions. So here's what worked for me:

1 - Forget long duration / heavy exercises. Physical exercise, while having an number of health benefits, and overall making you feel good, simply sucks at weight loss. Just look up how many calories the most common exercises consume per hour, and see that you can get the exact same benefit (in terms of calories) simply by skipping dessert, or not drinking a couple of beers.

2 - Forget extreme / drastic diets. Extreme diets, not only may endanger your health, but you'll most likely give up after a while (like pretty much almost everybody who tried exteme diets, usually after some new year resolution or similar).

Now that we're past that, what's important to understand is:

1 - To lose weight, you only need one thing: to ingest less calories than you spend. The way to achieve this with the least effort, is by controlling what you eat. With 320 pounds, depending on your age and height, your body is probably using around 3200/3500 calories per day. Try to reduce your daily calory intake to around 2000 calories, and start watching those pounds shave off.

2 - It's at home that we get fat. Those crackers / chips (a pack of chips alone has nearly 1000 calories!) while watching a movie, those beers and icecreams in the fridge, those afternoon snacks, etc. That's where we get fat, at home.

So what I did (and worked for me), was to banish crap food from my home (and just my home). No more chips, no more snacks, no beers, no icecreams, no sodas, no sugared juices, no more junk entered my house from that moment on. Great for your health AND for your wallet!

You don't need to ban desserts, beeres, sodas, etc from your life. Simply ban them from your home. This way it will be easier because you won't feel like you're forbidden to once and a while eat an icecream, or a dessert at the restaurant, etc. It's OK to eat dessert once and a while when you are eating out with friends, it's ok to occasionally eat a piece of cake at someone's birthday party. It's ok to drink a soda on some hot day while going out. Simply don't make it a daily happy, and you'll be golden. As long as you don't ever, ever have those kinds of things at home. This way you can still have at your favorite forbidden fruit once and a while, just never at home.

So we already established that your house must become a sacred temple where no junk food may ever enter, now the second important thing,. it to cut down the amount of food you eat at dinner. Remember, you'll only stay awake a few hours after dinner, and most of the time you'll be relaxing. So there is no need to eat nowhere near as much for dinner as you need for lunch. Cut down dinner ration in half, it will still be enough for you to not feel hungry, and if you still do, try going to bed a little earlier, or drink tea.

If you want to add a little bit of mild exercise, then do one (or both of the following)

1 - Walking. Do a bit of walking. Forget running. You'll be exhausted very quickly, and with that weight you'll just end up damaging your knees. Walking has nearly all the same benefits of running. Just walk for 10/15 minutes at a comfortable pace. Just to move your muscles, remember that exercise sucks at weight loss, so no need to push it. If you have a dog, take him with you.

2 - Weight lifting. This is actually the better option to help with weight loss. Because even tough it sucks at burning calories directly (like most exercises), it boosts your metabolism, boosts your testosterone (which in turn boosts metabolism), and your body will eat calories overnight to repair your muscles after a good session. Also it will grow your muscles and your overall strenght, which will not only make you feel good, but larger muscles spend more calories. Do 15 minutes of weight lifting per day. But do proper weight lifting. Get a pair of dumbells (they're good for a lot of different exercises and easy to store at home) and do 10/15 minutes of weight lifting. By proper weight lifting, I mean that if you can do more than 10/15 reps of the same exercise, then you're wasting time and you need to add more weight. And don't repeat the same mucle groups every day, alternate between them. After a proper session, your muscles need at least 24 hours to get repaired. Alternate between arms, chest, legs, etc.

Remember that weight lifting can be dangerous, if you don't have a friend with experience to show you the ropes, watch some trainer videos so you do the exercies properly and safely, but the most important rule is never lock your elbows. Also, breath in you're your applying strenght, exhale when releasing.

So in order to shave off those pounds without drastic measures and without feeling unhappy, you just need to:

1 - Ban all kinds of junk food from your house. You're still allowed occasional sins when you're outside, but just outside and don't make a daily habit of it! This is by far the most important rule.
2 - Cut your dinner ration. Eat only half at dinner of what you would eat for lunch! This is the second most important rule.
3 - Optionally complement with mild exercise. Weight lifting is the best gain per time due to its indirect weight loss benefits. Also yopu can easily do it at home, so it's harder to find reasons to skip it. Walking is cool too. 15/20 minutes a day will suffice, so you won't get bored of it and give up. This is a nice to have.

Just by doing this, you'll be looking at losing between 2 to 5 pounds a month without suffering. It may look little, but keep that consistent and you'll be punching new holes in your belt frequently and most importantly seeing constant progress whic will boost your motivation, which means you'll be able to sustain it without risk of giving up. Also, if you're 320 pounds, you have been fat for several years now, so even if it takes a couple of years to get to a healty weight it won't be the end of the world. What matters is seeing progress, and don't falling back. You'll get there.

You can complement this with several little things, at your discretion.

1 - Drink lots of water. Helps with feeling full. Especially cold.
2 - Drink tea at night. Also helps to feel your stomach full. Especially when you begin cutting your dinner ration.
3 - Eat fruit as "dessert" at home.
4 - Eat spicy food. Hot sauce usually has nearly no calories, and the substance that makes it spicy (capsaicin) boosts your metabolism (plus lots of other health benefits).
5 - Try to eat less meat, or replace pig/cow meat with chicken / turkey meat. White meat has less fat. Soy is an excellent low calories meat replacement, but not everybody likes it and it takes good preparation to taste good.
6 - You you can't live without fried food, buy an airfryer! It uses only a tiny amount of oil (or in some cases no oil at all), and oil is the main reason why fried food is unhealthy.


This is not the most efficient / quickest way to lose weight for sure, but it is very easy to sustain in the long term (which works great for for lazy people like me) and will absolutely work with minimal psycological effort, even if not as quickly as more drastic ways.

Sorry for the wall of text, and good luck!
 
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It's all been said here already - you need a jolt or a sudden change to get things started. Your young, you need to start by turning the computer off ... set a time limit of x amount of hours a day to use it - I think you are on it a lot ... take that extra time and walk with the dog... walk and walk and walk.. then as suggested try jogging, a little at first then add time/distance .. this is not a quick and easy process, you will be a couple years in making the transition but nothing happens until you turn off your computer and get outside. Best of luck to you.
 
Hi Un1k0rn.

What this guy said above and he gets rep.

I've been weight training, aerobic exercising and doing martial arts for decades. I don't suffer from any weight problem but, if you have actually studied physical culture and exercise, there are a few points that need to be made clear:

1. Exercise alone never works for losing weight. That's an old wives' tale; a myth.
2. Exercise is always good.
3. To lose weight you need to modify your diet and support that new diet with exercise.

So yes; by all means exercise but diet is the most important thing. If you don't know what a good diet is for you, you need to seek the advice of either a doctor, dietician or other properly trained health professional.

With respect I think asking people on these forums what to do is not a good idea. They don't know you, they don't understand your individual circumstances, problems and needs.

Assessment by a qualified health professional should be sought if you really want to go on a weight-loss program/regime.

O.k.?
 
Forget the gym or such things. It will only make you eat more, but...

You have a dog, right?
What about just walking 5 miles, every day. As a start, to accommodate your body to moving. Do it for 6 months. Eat twice a day. Solid lunch and a light TV snack in the afternoon but miss the breakfast and don't eat after 6pm.

After 6 months of this, start jogging. Again, 5 miles, 6 days a week and regular walk on 7th.

Your dog will love this and after a first month or two, so will you.

Start with 30 min walk each day, then after 7 days up it to 45 mins, then increase by 15 mins each week until 1.5hrs.
 
Walk. At your own speed, slowly, take some interesting notes (I did OpenStreetMap surveys). Walking is perfect of burning your fat off. It is hard at first, but just keep at it. It will help you a lot.

edit: ninjad by all suggestions for walking. Walk truly does wonders. You just keep pushing yourself for 2 weeks. Your body will start to love after that.
 
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Deleted member 110222

D
I will begin walking the dog properly as of tomorrow.

I really appreciate the brilliant response. I no doubt have a serious problem, and if I carry on as I am now, well best case scenario is becoming wheelchair bound, which I want to avoid.

I've got to start taking this seriously. I was just watching the Microsoft briefing at E3, and I saw dozens of large, fat men in the audience... All I saw was myself, and it is hideous.

Obviously I'm not going to expect to see visible change immediately, as that's an unrealistic expectation. No, I ask your opinion. Do you think a good first goal is to just develop the stamina where I can walk at a casual pace without becoming breathless?

Hey Unikorn, how old are you, if it's not too rude? Is mid twenties correct, as stated by Arry?

24 in a few days.
 
There is LOTS of good advice in the previous posts. Good job all!

But there is a side benefit to the walking advice.

You just moved right? You are now in a new place with LOTS of new things/places/people to explore. New parks. New shopping places. Even just new streets and neighborhoods.

You and Fudge (right?) are gonna have a blast checking out all of those new sights (and smells). Making new friends out there on the outside. Getting free vitamin D from the sun and maybe even a bit of a tan.

Maybe this week you will only make the walk over to "Second street". Next week it will be "Third street". And soon enough you and Fudge will want to see what's on the other side of that hill in the distance. From there the possibilities are endless.

You have it made man! Sooooo much new is in store for you, and even eventually a new you!
 
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You are young, that's a nice start. All I can say is, don't set goals in that domain. Since we all have very different metabolisms, and you don't know what to expect yet, you're ought to set unrealistic goals, and will end up being disappointed. And probably be discouraged for good. Change your habits (healthy food, reasonable exercises such as walking on regular basis) for the immediate sake of it first and foremost, and treat long term benefits (weight loss among others) as byproducts.

Many good advices were already given to you, I'll go and repeat one of them: do not hurt yourself. Either mentally, by being unfair and harsh on yourself, or physically, by trying to practice exercises you are not ready for yet.

Last but not least, whatever exercise you decide to do, and I highly recommand long walks at first, always push a little bit more in the end. Not to the point of suffering, but you need to progress and build on your previous efforts, always. So, do not suffer, but do not stagnate either.
 
Yes, I don't want you holding back. I will take zero offence here.

Okay 320 pounds, all fat, seems like a rather questionable aesthetical ideal to me, but who am I to judge and afaik people rarely die from being ugly.

The real danger I suspect is not the fat you see, but the stuff in your blood that will inevitably clog your blood vessels sooner or later. If the stenosis form in one or more arteries that supply your heart, you have about one hour when you feel the first symptoms of a heart attack and being treated in a hospital until the lack of oxygene causes damage to the organ.

However, should the narrowing occur in the arteries in your neck, the ones that supply your brain, it takes only 3 minutes until you begin to die.

You should make an appointment with your doctor for a general check and cardiac stress test. He/She should also be able to advise you how to begin to exercise and loose weight. And of course you need to find a physical activity that you enjoy. If you hate running and biking only makes your butt hurt, then maybe swimming is your thing.

In the end it's all about doing with your body what it was made to do. Obviously we are neither the strongest creatures living on this planet nor the fastest and very likely not even the smartest, but there is no other living being that can beat us when it comes to endurance, we are not made to sprint, but for the long range (because only very few animals can regulate their body temperature like we can by sweating).
 
It's not all fat. You need a lot of muscle to carry that kind of weight. Don't bother with exercising other than walking the dog. Don't start jogging or you will probably ruin your joints. After you lose a lot of weight, then look into getting fit via exercise.

Don't drink too much water. Drink if you are thirsty, but try to only drink water, coffee, tea (unsweetened - especially no sugar). Skip sodas and juice and milk (cream in tea/coffee is ok).

Don't worry about your salt intake. Salt is demonized unfairly.

If you really want to lose weight fast, look into very low carb diets like keto. Eliminate sugar and flour/bread. Eat healthy fats like butter and olive oil to keep yourself satisfied (but not too much because you want to consume your body fat for energy). This is not a fad diet or extreme.

Don't be afraid of red meat, but make sure to eat plenty of green vegetables everyday.

Only eat two meals a day in a restricted eating window. For example, skip breakfast and only eat lunch and dinner in a 6 hour window (can have breakfast for dinner and etc).

Don't snack to keep your metabolic furnace burning - that is bad advice, like eating a lot of grains (grains make cows a pigs fat - and humans too).

Start playing ED a lot more to take your mind off of eating.

Watch youtube videos by Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Ken Berry and you'll find links to many others.
 
Walking, mate, walking. Nothing crazy. Walking is your friend as is portion control. And best of luck to you! Also, water is very good and you should drink plenty of it. Not sure what above is all about. Brutally honest advice is skip over all us internet folk and have a candid discussion with your doctor.
 
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I weigh 320 pounds, all fat.

I have near zero stamina, getting breathless just going up the stairs.

Mum has put me on a diet, but that's not enough alone.

The problem is that I'm near to passing out within minutes of doing anything physical. I just don't know what to do, as I really cannot find the energy to keep going.

You should do exercise, your weight will be an inccreasingly bad issue as you get older so the sooner the better. By exercise I mean just walking for now or maybe lifting relatively lightweight weights for as long as possible.
 
Cut out any and all soda. Switch to water. If you can't stand the taste of plain water, use Crystal Light drink mix in it.
If you NEED to munch, find things like celery, fruit, etc.

And GO TO A DOCTOR. Have your heart checked out. My dad had a partial blockage in one artery to his heart, and after the stent opened it up he found himself suddenly having more energy and we saw more color in his face.
 
I weigh 320 pounds, all fat.

I have near zero stamina, getting breathless just going up the stairs.

Mum has put me on a diet, but that's not enough alone.

The problem is that I'm near to passing out within minutes of doing anything physical. I just don't know what to do, as I really cannot find the energy to keep going.

I think you already know what you should do and asking us about it is just another delaying tactic.
 
To start you must remove bread, potatoes, sugars like cake, sweets, ice cream

You must also reduce fat like butter, milk

You must eat a lot of vegetables steamed

For the sport you can make at your home, treadmill, exercise bike, rowing machine

Why not try dumbbells ?

And also go for walks in nature to balance the brain with all these physical efforts

And do not forget the sauna and steam room to eliminate superficial toxins

A long way but if you lose 88 pounds you will be a new man and very happy with your progress

(The weekend you can give you some food pleasures, but not too much ;))
 
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