Sorry! Long post=long reply!

Wow. First of all, You. Are. Awesome. I can imagine that was not easy to write. Congrats. You’ve taken your first step on this new journey.

Below is a list of things that can help you get organized, but first, a solution to your problem could be this: you need a why. Calorie counting, Keto, etc are difficult for sure, but that being said, any significant change in your diet will be. So you have to start with the why you want to make this change in your diet. It needs to be a mission statement for yourself. Put it somewhere you can see it. Take 5 mins each morning to write down some goals for the day. Make them small and manageable. Stave off binges by allowing yourself small portions of things you normally binge on. Better to have a small piece or two of chocolate once a week (or whatever goal you set) than to try to abstain until that stressful day happens and then you fold and eat too much. Sustainability is important in your nutrition choices, so learning to spend a few hours in your kitchen each week will help you keep on the healthier side of the food track by preparing food in advance and having healthier snacks around to bridge those times when you're hungry and dinner is still cooking! While you should do the diet that you think works for you best, I’m a big fan of just sticking to clean, whole foods. Lots of veggies, some protein, minimal to no added sugars, minimal alcohol, minimal dairy. That’s what I do though, but you have to find what works for you. Because of your level of motivation right now, I’d honestly suggest doing an elimination diet, such as Whole30. It will teach you so much about food and your relationship with it, not to mention, help you start meeting your goals with weight. At the bottom of this post is a link to a book that you should truly buy and read it through. It will give you a solid foundation to start your journey.

Sometimes when getting started, it’s best to focus on one thing at a time. While exercise is an obvious choice to assisting you to get in shape, starting the diet alone can be exhausting and if you think it will be too draining to do both, always start with diet. Once you start having a consistent diet with balanced foods and proper nutrition, you’ll have more energy for working out and you’ll be less likely for injury. Due to your knee issues, focus on low impact. Ellipticals, swimming, water aerobics, or walking even. Look up some couch to 5k run schedules. They have great measured starts, where you walk for 5 mins, run for 2. Then 4 and 3. Etc etc.

Before I get into some tips and tricks for diet below, please don’t just use the scale as your only benchmark for success. Remember, if you create a sustainable, healthy diet, weight loss is the by product of health and nutrition. The goal should be to get healthy. The result is to lose weight. When making your goals keep that in mind! Take body measurements, use before, during, after photos, take note of how your clothes are fitting. Also celebrate little things, i.e., grabbing almonds or veggies or fruit for a snack instead of sweets or junk food. The importance of journaling cannot be understated. Write down positives each day. Talk about your goals and whether they have been successful or are they now areas of opportunity (AOO)? If it’s a AOO, what can you do to tweak the goal so it becomes a success?

With regards to being healthy, below is my down and dirty quick starter list.

1. So let’s talk protein, carbohydrates, and fats for a second, which are called macronutrients. I am sure you’ve seen all sorts of advice with these online. Don’t eat too much. Make sure you get enough. ETC ETC ETC If we use the keep it simple method, this is the best advice I can give you: eat clean, whole foods. Bam. That’s seriously it. Now when you reach your initial health and fitness goals and then you want to zoom in and really get technical, you can start to break down whether you need to count macronutrients or calories or what and when you should eat.
   
2. I know this sounds counter intuitive because of the diet culture we live in, but seriously, listen to your body. Eat when you’re hungry. Eat slow enough that your body can recognize when it’s had enough nutrition. Hormones will be released while you’re eating to tell your brain, hey! I’m full!!! Then stop eating. If you’re following step 1 of clean, whole foods, you can’t eat too much anyway. Yes. I’m serious. Your body will thank you for the fresh food and it will let you know when you’ve had enough. If you have a serious wave of hunger hit you in the middle of the day, drink some water and wait 15 minutes. See if that helps. Sometimes, we're just thirsty and we're misreading the signals.
   
3. What is the difference between listening to my body and cravings? Cravings are more than likely psychological. So keep in mind, when I say, listen to your body, that doesn’t mean listen to your cravings. I hope that isn’t too confusing. Cravings can occur due to habits (see #4), due to stress (which you are definitely experiencing now), due to numerous other physiological conditions too. When I heard someone say, listen to your body, I used to think to myself, what the hell does that even mean? It sounded like a cop out. But over time, balancing out my diet, educating myself more, and experiencing an elimination diet, I am proof that one can learn how to pay attention to the signs the body gives. Food is often an after thought. A means to satisfy hunger instead of nourish our bodies. Refocus your relationship with food and that might help you immensely.
   
4. Find a way to balance cravings. As an example, one of my toughest battles is after lunch and dinner, I ALWAYS want sweets, because for the longest time, I always ate something sweet after lunch and dinner. I love ice cream, I love chocolate, I love sweets! So, to hit that sweet tooth, I will eat strawberries, bananas, or apples. You can also google lots of recipes for ‘healthy’ desserts. That doesn’t mean it has to be completely absent of sugar or taste, but it can be controlled and if it’s cooked at home, it will often be healthier than something store bought.
   
5. What is clean, whole foods? Another easy tip: When you go to the grocery store, avoid the center of the building. That’s where all the processed foods are. Clean foods are mostly in your produce section, they are single ingredient items. When I go grocery shopping now, about 80% of my cart is produce. I pick up a variety of proteins, fish, chicken, pork, and beef for example. Variety in foods is important to get all the necessary nutrients. I cook a couple different meals on Sundays for the beginning of the week and pack those up in Tupperware. So that morning of work, all I do is grab the Tupperware, throw it in the lunch bag with a few healthy snacks, and I’m ready to go.
   
6. Organic, not organic, pastured, cage free, ect ect ect…. Look, you can delve into the world as food as much as you like. The majority of foods we eat is NOT healthy. Even foods that LOOK healthy aren’t always. This is where label reading comes into play. This seems complicated and sometimes, it is. I'm not sure whether you’re just getting started or how experienced you are. At this point, focus on trying to eat cleaner foods. Try to get away from the processed and junk foods. However, it’s not worth getting stressed about all of it. Do organic if you can afford it. If you can’t buy all organic, then things you eat often, get organic. Also, foods that don’t have a peeling on them are more susceptible to pesticides than foods that do, i.e., strawberries absorb everything, get organic, however, oranges, we don’t typically eat the peeling, so if you had to choose, you can forgo the organic there. If you eat a lot of chicken, try to get the higher quality. But if you’re check book can’t stretch that far, don’t panic, it’s not the end of the world. Your body will thank you for buying anything that is freshly cooked as opposed to something like Tysons Chicken Nuggets that are highly processed.
   
7. Lastly, to save money on clean, whole foods, look for local farmer’s markets, CSA’s (https://www.localharvest.org), or talk to a local butcher/farm for buying whole animals, i.e., a whole chicken costs $15-25, and you can typically visit the farm to see where it is raised, it’s conditions, and it’s quality.
   
   Most important, keep it simple! It can be easy to get overwhelmed, but take small, measured steps that will lead to little successes. Over time, this will build up to huge successes. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience”.
   
   Remember too, you’ll have setbacks. Everyone does. Don’t get discouraged. You’re on the journey of a lifetime. You’re trying to fundamentally change your dietary habits. This is no small feat. It took you a long time to get to the point you’re at now, it’s not going to be fixed overnight. Patience and humility are great allies in this journey. And if you have or start having doubts, look back at the little victories (a journal works great for this… write down things you succeeded at each day to help on those tough days!). Believe you can do this and you can. Motivation is born from a decision. You’ve made the decision. You’ve got this!
   Check out the book It [Starts With Food] (https://www.amazon.com/Starts-Food-Discover-Whole30-Unexpected/dp/1628600543). I love this book. It is a great intro to food and its effects on the body. Educating yourself is important because it helps solidify your goals and gives you better understanding why you're not eating 'x' or add 'y' to your diet. Also, a great resource for minimizing sugar is: www.iquitsugar.com. This Aussie can give you some fantastic information on what sugar does to the body and how to minimize or quit sugar altogether.
   
   I wish you the best of luck!

I have never read a reddit post this long before, or all the comments. You write very well.

I'll start with the budet issue. I do try to be as frugal as possible as well, but can 'afford' most of the food and to by expensive organic stuff sometimes too. I would make lean ground beef a staple. I would take the time to seek out a butcher or farmer so you know where the meat is coming from, and can usually get it at big box store prices. Where I live that is ~$3 per lb. I would also get some beef liver. This is actually one of the most nutrient dense source of food you can eat. One way to work it into your food with it being palatable is to mix it in with the ground beef. I also eat a ton of bacon. You should be able to get it for pretty cheap as well.

For eggs it was mentioned already but eat the yokes, Tim even says that hidden in the Testosteron chapter. I would again try to find a farmer that you can get pastured eggs for cheap.

For veggies I find that frozen is usually more expensive. Buy fresh whatever is on sale and paying attention to all the grocery store flyers is important. Again finding farms and farmers markets too. Some communities have Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) where you can put in some time working on the garden in exchange for some of the produce, I would look into that.

Also if you google for "paleo budget shopping list" or things like that there are a lot of resources. SCD comes from the same foundation as Paleo (listen to Tim on Robb Wolfs Podcast from Dec 2010 for more info).

It seems like you may not have a lot of financial resource but do have quite a bit of time. I would use that time to learn as much as possible about nutrition, for both physical health and mental health. Tim's book is a great starting point but it doesn't quite fill in a lot of the gaps. There are a lot of false info in conventional nutrition info and he didn't quite debunk them all enough. You can get books for free at your local library, hopefully it is a decent library. If not there are other ways to find them and most of these people have great websites and blogs as well.

1. It Starts With Food I have read a lot of books, and if this one came out sooner it would have saved me a lot of time. It is the best book by far. The blog is at http://whole9life.com/
   
2. Robb Wolf's podcast. This has been huge place for me to learn about some of the more scientific aspects of nutrition. I also read his bood The Paleo Solution and it is a good read.
   
3. Gary Taubes. He has a ton of interviews and talks on youtube and around the web http://www.google.com/search?q=gary+taubes+interview he also has 2 good book, "Good Calories Bad Calories" and "Why We Get Fat"
   
4. Underground Wellness podcast and the Dark Side Of Fat Loss Ebook by Sean Croxton. This podcast is all interviews by some of the best nutrition gurus out there (all of the previously mentioned have been on his podcast plus way more) The ebook is quite good as well
   
5. Emily Dean she has a blog here http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.ca/ and http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/emily-deans-md She also has a book which I just found out about.
   
6. Stephan Guyenet Blog at http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ca/ he is quite technical but very good source
   
7. Chris Kresser has a great blog and podcast as well.
   
8. Dave Asprey bulletproofexec.com blog and podcast. He has really good stuff on stress and sleep hacking http://www.bulletproofexec.com/hack-stress/
   
9. Marks Daily Apple by Mark Sission great blog and forum. Also has a couple of books out call Primal Blueprint.
   
   There are also some small 4 HB specific blogs. hisc1ay has a good one http://www.findingmyfitness.com. Mine is at http://www.myfourhourbodydiary.com/. Luke at http://4hourbodycouple.com and http://4hourbodyzone.com by Brian and http://www.4hourlife.com/ by Stephen.
   
   Also the http://www.4hbtalk.com forum is quite active and has a lot of helpful people.
   
   To address some of the other specific things you asked about. The eggs I already mentioned I wrote about it a while ago if you want more detailed info http://www.myfourhourbodydiary.com/2012/02/05/the-big-fat-missing-chapter/.
   
   I personally don't think beans are the best choice for you give your history of thyroid issues. I would definitely stay away from peanuts, I know you didn't mention them but they are a legume, and the protein lectin in them can not be digested. This is why so allergies to them can be so sever in some people. I can see how your thyroid issues may have disappeared when you started eating more. Fasting that much and eating that little would cause a huge stress on you adrenals and your cortisol would be through the roof.
   
   I think roots and tubers like sweet potatoes, yam, taro, carrots, squash and other starchy veggies (potatoes might be ok for you too, they have a higher glycemic index but if you are eating them with fat an protein the glycemic load should be low) would be a safer choice for you. They have a glycemic index of ~37 which is pretty low and have very few inflammatory proteins.
   
   I also would try to limit starchy foods to 1-2 meals a day not all 3. A high fat and protein breakfast will keep you satiated for a long time and provide a ton of nutrition. Here is a good example although I would avoid the fruit until you are at your goal weight http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/270/The_Meat_and_Nut_Breakfast.aspx
   
   I also recommend to people to try a gluten free cheat day. It worked wonders for me and most people that try seem to feel much better and lose fat much faster as well. I try and recommend to eat as much fruit as possible on cheat day. Helps build up that store of liver glycogen and help with any sweet tooth issues.
   
   For exercise looks pretty good what you are doing, especially since you are noticing a difference so fast. When you start to plateau or get bored of those exercises adding in some stuff from the kiwi workout would be good, and other KB stuff like cleans and snatches if you feel comfortable doing them. Learning the more advanced stuff too is fun, like turkish getups, on legged deadlifts etc. Also I highly recommend pullups, you can usually find a bar at your local park to do them. Being that we sit a lot we generally have a weak back and pulling muscles.
   
   As for the amount of weight lost you are doing very good. I think 10 lbs a month is around average maybe a bit over average. I think it would really benefit you to make some non scale goals (NSV or non scale victories as they like to say in /r/loseit) see this post for ideas http://whole9life.com/2012/08/new-health-scale/
   The scale is a really shitty way to measure body composition and health.
   
   Some longer term goals and maybe some performance goals I think would really help you out as well. 'Dieting to lose x amount of weight' is never successful. Tim states in the book many time it is a lifestyle change. You want to look good, and being healthy is the best way to accomplish that. My goal from the start was to lead a healthy lifestyle to set an example for my son and any future kids I have, I have been at it for 18 months now and will never go back. There have been set back, ups and downs along the way, but when your goal is long term and you are looking way down the road, having some cake at a birthday isn't that big of a deal.
   
   I also get a ton of help from my S/O and I highly suggest everyone get by in and help from the people around them. They don't have to be as passionate about it as you are but as long as they are board and have some sort of health related goals it makes a huge difference.
   
   Good Luck, feel free to contact me directly.

General advice:
You are what you make of yourself. Study hard (but within reason - have time for socializing/relaxing), exercise, eat right. Acknowledge criticism from those you respect. Almost everything is matter of priority and the effort you are willing to put in: grades, popularity, sex, etc

On being popular:
It's overrated and very hard to predict (other than being physically attractive has a high positive correlation; exercise and diet rear their heads again). Aim for not being picked while having a core group of genuine friends and being, if not friendly, at least on speaking terms with people in your classes. Humor is good but only as long as it is mainstream.
Edited for formatting and size

On Grades:
Spend a few months figuring out what you learn easily and what takes time. Find out what study habits work best for you. Experiment with this until you have a sustainable study habit which maximized learning while minimizing time spent. If a topic refuses to stick, talk to the teacher or someone other Adult Authority Figure^(TM) and explain in non-whining manner that despite your best efforts you need help with it. Double the amount of time you think it will take you to write a paper.

On Health and Sports:
Your teenage years are the best to get into an exercise habit. Take care of your body for a few reasons. It's the only one you have, it'll extend your life, you'll never have more free time to devote to setting a baseline of percent body fat, and it'll help attract someone for the next section. Decide on the type of body you want now instead of pining for it later. The body type portrayed in the media as hot or attractive is a mix of a swimmer and a soccer/lacrosse player. If you are not tall (</=5'5") consider a wrestling build. Exercise doesn't necessarily mean sports but they go hand in hand. I recommend team sports as they include socializing, teamwork, and may get you invited to parties (the two main sources of parties, in my experience, are sports teams and the drama club/theater people).

On dating and sex:
It'll happen or it won't, the former mostly depending on you and the latter depending on you and (at least) another person. Everything in this section should be taken with a large serving of YMMV and "it's complicated, these are broad generalizations." Oh, I'm assuming male heteronormity; if you're female or gay then let me offer my support and well wishes because you're going to have it very rough though for different reasons that would take an entire other post to address. First, never assume a girl is into you because she's being friendly. Teenage body language is very unreliable both in projecting and reading because of hormones so don't rely on that. Words, however awkward, are more reliable. Always be respectful and courteous and hope for the best.
Second, the main problem is having the stones to ask someone out in the first place especially because isolating a girl in high school is nigh impossible so you'll be asking in front of other girls. Having the courage to ask is 80% and being apathetic enough to not be an emotional mess if she turns you down in public is the other 20%. If you get hit hard by it, bury it until you get home, and then let the emotions out and put it behind you. When you do ask, ask if they'd like to do some activity you two have in common; preferably in a semipublic place she'd feel comfortable (a local coffeehouse, rock climbing gym, skate park, etc).

The a couple of times you two do something like this, assume it is as friends. After that you need to directly state something along the lines of, "Hey, I really enjoy hanging out with you. Would it be okay if I came over sometime or you came to my place and made you dinner, you know like a date?" The best result would be your place as then you could attempt to sell the evening as a night of the house to your parent(s). In a conversation before the night in question mention to the girl that your parent(s) won't be there and give her the opportunity to back out. Practice making whatever you plan on making (something simple that you know she likes would be best).

Plan the evening being dinner and watching a movie on the couch. Either sit down first and let her choose where she sits or sit about a handspan away from her with room for her to move away or get closer. Stay relaxed and let the night progress as it will. At some point, if she cuddles in, take a minute or two to just stare at her face. Wait until she notices and looks at you. Say the most romantic thing possible in the situation, "You're beautiful; may I kiss you?" Asking permission to kiss both bold in its directness, gives an immediate answer of if she's into you, and is (so I've been told) extremely potent to a teenage girl. Take the first kiss slow and easy, stay relaxed, keep your eyes open, and for her sake, be gentle and don't slobber.
Sex (in all its permutations) is tricky. The most basic piece of advice I can give is: you have no right to it but it is a blessing if you get it. Read the wikipedia entry on rape culture and think about the shear Punisher levels of violence you would visit upon the shit-stained syphilitic cyst effluvient if they raped the most beloved female figure in your life.

Feeling a little off or violent? Good. Now think about coming home after a really bad day to a warm cookie and a glass of cold milk. Internalize that warm fuzziness of a good deed towards you; not the cookie or milk, but that someone cared for you enough to make the cookies and pour the milk. Magnify that by a ridiculously large number. Larger. Larger. That is the feeling you get when a girl asks you to be her partner in having sex.
The key is that she wants to have sex in the first place. The best you can do to reach that scenario is be the person she can invest in emotionally and trust enough to feel comfortable with at her most vulnerable.
That being said, you can stack the deck in your favor, and here is where things get kind of... skeazy. Learn how to arouse a women during the course of making out. The human body is a finely tuned machine and knowing the user's manual helps. Read up on erogenous zones (especially the ones not located at the chest and crotch so you have places to put your hands while kissing), massage techniques, and other clothes-on no-penetration methods of causing arousal. Learn the signs of female arousal: increased heart rate, flushing of the face and upper chest, and sometimes slight tremors of the arms and legs. If you can achieve that from kissing and petting then you ask the second most physically romantic question a guy ask:

"Would it be alright if I helped you orgasm?" Again, bold in its directness, gives her a clear opportunity to stop where things are, and places the power in her hands while stating that you aren't giving her an orgasm like a gift but helping her achieve something as a partner. At this point, instead of graphic advice on digital and oral sex I'll point you in the direction of The Four Hour Body. Find a copy at your local chain bookstore (or library if you're lucky) and read the chapters 'The 15-Minute Female Orgasm-Part Un' and 'The 15-Minute Female Orgasm-Part Deux' (and don't just go, "Hur hur, naughty bits," be clinical in your education and passionate in your application).
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT take any hints on sexual performance from porn as odds are you aren't watching the right type. Never ask her to perform a sexual service to you unless she has already done so at least twice by her own design.

If you're lucky, after showing you are trustworthy, kind, compassionate, and capable of facilitating her please, at some point she may inform you that she wants/think she is ready for sex. Don't immedietely run for the condoms. Hug her, kiss her, and say your honored and ask if she is sure. Assuming she says yes, set up when. If she informs you by locking her door,

im late! there is a TON of helpful advice already out there! but i feel compelled to share what worked for me (i wanted to lose weight for my wedding, and then i had to keep it off until the big day. augh!). herere a few tidbits that helped me achieve my goals:

-first go back to your doc for a physical + lab work in order to establish a baseline for yourself.

-then, get an idea of how many calories you should be eating, more or less. use a free online calorie calculator like http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm or http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598. this is so, so individual, so if the calculator is giving you what you consider a drastic result (i.e., you try to only eat xxxx calories, and you wind up bingeing), i would start off by logging what you normally eat for a week, and cutting 100 back a day from that. if you want to get fancy, you can zig-zag your calorie cutting (e.g., 100 less/150 less/50 less/none less/100 less, etc.) to trick your metabolism. i think one of the free calorie calculators will do this for you. might need to google around for it, though. increase the calorie cutbacks at a pace that feels comfortable to you.

resolve not to beat yourself up over exceeding your daily allowances -- that can lead backsliding. if you go over, you go over. that doesnt mean the rest of the day is ruined, so you may as well eat ice cream :) (i am so guilty of this, if I'm not mindful!)

-next, sign up for something like loseit.com -- its a free web site + app for logging calories and exercise. (it also contains a calorie calculator, so if you choose loseit.com, you can skip my previous paragraph). it can be as involved as you want it to be (i dont participate in the forums, for example. all i really do is log.), and it has all kinds of nifty little helpful motivators. i mostly use it on my phone, since i do a lot of my eating at work. ive tried a lot of these kinds of apps, and this has my fav logging interface. my fav aspect is that you can get email reports sent to you daily or weekly. (i was doing this the hard way with, first, a little notebook, and then an excel spreadsheet, and this app is sooo much easier!)

-if you have some extra money (between $11 and $16 for new, and you can get it used for way less), invest it in a book called 'the beck diet solution.' [or get it from the library.] http://www.amazon.com/Beck-Diet-Solution-Train-Person/dp/0848731735 the author is a psychologist (impressive pedigree -- her dad is the beck of the 'beck depression inventory,' which is a widely utilized instrument for determining depression severity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_Depression_Inventory.) with a cognitive-behavioral orientation, and she takes you through how to train yourself to think and act in constructive ways that will help you stick to a healthier lifestyle. its not magical, but its got a lot of great ideas, and i found a lot of it very helpful. its divvied up into days and weeks, so week one is called 'laying the groundwork,' and some of the days include 'arrange your environment,' etc. week 2 is preparing the diet. week three is starting the diet. week 4 is about how to respond to sabotaging thoughts and people and other challenges. it goes on from there. if you have a friend or someone online interested in going through the book with you, youve got accountability built in right there :)

-i hear you on not liking fruits and veggies. i love veggies but really dont care for fruits. you may surprise yourself by developing taste for one or both later on, as you progress through improving your lifestyle, but if not, who cares, as long as youre getting your vitamins and minerals? (yes, its best to get them straight from the source, but its probably more important for your overall health to just start improving the diet + exercise, and you can tweak all that later. obviously please dont do this, but I'm sure you remember this dude: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html.) there are a few ways to approach this:

--one way is that if you do not find meal planning/preparation too overwhelming, embrace it! if you're not currently studying, maybe you can utilize that extra time (maybe an hour a day, broken up into 15 minute increments, if you find devoting that much time to one thing challenging (i have no attention span, so this is how i am able to get anything done)) and put it toward researching diets and nutrition and meal planning.

--another way is to find some frozen or prepared foods that you like, find a good sale, and stock up! as long as you stay within your calorie limits, mix 'em up however you want. (you may find as you start losing weight, that you are actually interested in trying other ways of eating, and this is when you may surprise yourself with developing a taste for fruits and/or veggies. its like an awesome slippery slope :) this totally happened to me and i would have looked at you like you were a crazy person had you suggested it to me earlier :))

--im just throwing this out there -- for some people, making a drastic change is what actually propels them further and acts as a marker between the past and future accomplishment. in that vein, i know someone who went raw cold-turkey, and she made absolutely no allowances from her previous diet life, and this totally worked for her.

what works for you depends on your psyche -- you know yourself best!

-related side note -- check this out with your doc first, since he alerted you to potential future liver damage, but if a paleo-style diet might appeal to your palate more than, say, a raw diet plan, it could be worth checking out with the md to figure out a way to follow the principles without increasing the odds of organ damage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

-re: exercise -- i hate exercise, too. i hate getting sweaty. i hate dressing for exercise. augh! but you just have to do it :( few ideas/anecdotes:

--to echo a lot of folks -- walk as much as possible. if you go to the grocery store, use the old park toward the back of the lot trick, and when youre unloading the bags from the car, walk them into the house one at a time. theres a few extra steps. maybe consider a pedometer to motivate yourself. depending on your phone, you might even have access to a pedometer app!

--if youre shy about exercising in front of people, consider working out to some exercise youtube videos at home for a while. i know a dude who was too embarrassed to run in front of people, so he literally ran in place in his basement (gradually increasing his time) before finally taking to the road, so he wouldnt feel embarrassed by not being able to go far/long. hey, whatever works for folks :) my version of this was to start running at night. i couldnt even go a half-mile the first time i went out there, but within months of thrice-weekly night runs, i was running a 5k at my goal time (<30 min). (if you go the night route, make sure to read up on safety and wear reflectors, carry your phone, etc.)

--try some body weight exercises. i did a boot camp that featured these kinds of workouts, and my running endurance improved drastically (which was a crazy surprising awesome side benefit :)). the beauty of them is that all you need is a small, clear space to do them in -- no accessories required. caution -- DO NOT over do it. seriously. if you are sedentary now, feel free to do what you can of them (e.g., i have bad knees, so there are some exercises for which i do a modified form), start at 5 or 10 reps of anything TOPS, even if you feel good in the moment. i promise you that you will feel it the next day (and the day after). learn from my fail: my first boot camp class took me a week to recover from. i literally couldnt work out for a week after that. stupid pride. now i dont care. i recently took a yoga class for the first time, and the teacher was trying to get me to do something way longer than i knew i could, and i was like, i promise you that one day, with practice, i will be able to do this for a full 6 minutes, but today is not the day, and im cool with that. yikes.

--you said you like gaming, so what about the wii fit or equivalent for your system?

finally, re: goal setting -- so many people have said brilliant things about goal setting, so i hate to be redundant, but: small + achievable goals! each day wake up with the goal of sticking close to your plan, and each week and month have an achievable goal + associated (non-diet-breaking) reward. e.g., if you walk x miles this month, you can go see a movie, or buy a game you want, or whatever floats your boat.

tl;dr: 1) see your doc; 2) make a calorie intake plan; 3) join a free web site that will allow you to log food + exercise; 4) buy or check out the beck diet book and read it all the way through; 5) exercise however works for you -- play around with this until you figure it out!; 6) do not get discouraged, and if you do, reach out for support!
best best best of luck!

First of all, congratulations on taking the first step towards better health! This is a difficult decision and it is no small feat what you are trying to accomplish, so seriously great job! Let’s dive into a few things I see here though that might help you out.

1. Do you have any experience in the kitchen? If not, I’d recommend finding some easy online recipes that utilize fresh foods to cook with. A simple google search of “quick easy fresh recipes” will give you more than enough options. IMPORTANT Do not get overwhelmed, do not try to do too much. If you have minimum experience in the kitchen, that’s okay! Start easy and work your way up. Some people watch Food Network (I’m a sucker for Chopped!) and think there is no way I can cook, but it’s truly not hard to cook clean, whole foods!
   
   
2. Cooking is important. Based on what you’ve listed for food for the day, you must be extremely hungry. While it’s important to cut back on the not so good foods you listed, it’s also important to make sure the body is getting proper nutrition. For instance, it looks like you’re increasing your activity by walking more, but your protein intake looks to be non-existent. This is not going to help your aches and pains as your body needs the protein, and in some cases, carbs, to help rebuild muscle/tissues.
   
   
3. So let’s talk protein, carbohydrates, and fats for a second, which are called macronutrients. I am sure you’ve seen all sorts of advice with these online. Don’t eat too much. Make sure you get enough. ETC ETC ETC If we use the keep it simple method, this is the best advice I can give you: eat clean, whole foods. Bam. That’s seriously it. Now when you reach your health and fitness goals and then you want to zoom in and really get technical, you can start to break down whether you need to count macronutrients or calories or what and when you should eat.
   
   
4. I know this sounds counter intuitive because of the diet culture we live in, but seriously, listen to your body. Eat when you’re hungry. Eat slow enough that your body can recognize when it’s had enough nutrition. Hormones will be released while you’re eating to tell your brain, hey! I’m full!!! Then stop eating. If you’re following step 3 of clean, whole foods, you can’t eat too much anyway. Yes. I’m serious. Your body will thank you for the fresh food and it will let you know when you’ve had enough.
   
   
5. What is the difference between listening to my body and cravings? Cravings are more than likely psychological. So keep in mind, when I say, listen to your body, that doesn’t mean listen to your cravings. I hope that isn’t too confusing. Cravings can occur due to habits (see #6), due to stress (which you will at some point, if not already, be going through), due to numerous other physiological conditions too. When I heard someone say, listen to your body, I used to think to myself, what the hell does that even mean? It sounded like a cop out. But we don’t pay attention to that so much these days. We live in a world of eating out constantly, eating what we want, and not considering repercussions. We don’t listen to our bodies because we’re too consumed with other things. Food is an after thought. Congrats my friend, your eyes are beginning to open to the idea that food is important.
   
   
6. Find a way to balance cravings. As an example, one of my toughest battles is after lunch and dinner, I ALWAYS want sweets, because for the longest time, I always ate something sweet after lunch and dinner. I love ice cream, I love chocolate, I love sweets! So, to hit that sweet tooth, I will eat strawberries, bananas, or apples. You can also google lots of recipes for ‘healthy’ desserts. That doesn’t mean it has to be absent of sugar or taste, but it can be controlled and if it’s cooked at home, it will be healthier than something store bought without question.
   
   
7. What is clean, whole foods? Another easy tip: When you go to the grocery store, avoid the center of the building. That’s where all the processed foods are. Yes, that even means your campbells soups. BUT, don’t stop reading yet!! There’s better news!! You can make fresh, AMAZING soups easily! As an example, I cook a couple different meals on Sundays for the beginning of the week and pack those up in Tupperware. So that morning of work, all I do is grab the Tupperware, throw it in the lunch bag with a few healthy snacks, and I’m ready to go. Clean foods are mostly in your produce section, if they are not in produce, they do not have ingredients in them you can’t pronounce. When I go grocery shopping now, about 80% of my cart is produce. I pick up a variety of proteins, fish, chicken, pork, and beef for example. Variety in foods is important to get all the necessary nutrients!
   
   
8. Organic, not organic, pastured, cage free, ect ect ect…. Look, you can delve into the world as food as much as you like. The further you go, the more you realize Americans have their eyes covered to the realities of the food we consume. For almost all Americans, the majority of foods we eat is shit. It is NOT healthy. Even foods that LOOK healthy aren’t always. This is where label reading comes into play. This seems complicated and sometimes, it is. You’re just getting started. At this point, focus on trying to eat cleaner foods. Try to get away from the processed stuff. The store bought soups have so many extras in them, including sodium and preservatives, which is something you will want to cut back on too. However, it’s not worth getting stressed about all of it. Do organic if you can afford it. If you can’t buy all organic, things you eat often, get organic. Also, foods that don’t have a peeling on them are more susceptible to pesticides than foods that do, i.e., strawberries absorb everything, get organic, however, oranges, we don’t typically eat the peeling, so if you had to choose, you can forgo the organic there. If you eat a lot of chicken, try to get the higher quality. But if you’re check book can’t stretch that far, don’t panic, it’s not the end of the world. Your body will thank you for buying anything that is freshly cook as opposed to something like Tysons Chicken Nuggets that are highly processed.
   
   
9. Lastly, to save money on clean, whole foods, look for local farmer’s markets, CSA’s (https://www.localharvest.org), or talk to a local butcher/farm for buying whole animals, i.e., a whole chicken costs $15-25, and you can typically visit the farm to see where it is raised, it’s conditions, and it’s quality.
   
   Most important, keep it simple! It can be easy to get overwhelmed, but take small, measured steps that will lead to little successes. Over time, this will build up to huge successes. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience”. Remember too, you’ll have setbacks. Everyone does. Don’t get discouraged. You’re on the journey of a lifetime. You’re trying to fundamentally change your life. This is no small feat. It took you a long time to get to the point you’re at now, it’s not going to be fixed overnight. Patience and humility are great allies in this journey! And if you start having doubts, look back at all the little victories (a journal works great for this...write down successes each day to help on those tough days!). Believe you can do this and you can. Motivation is born from a decision. You’ve made the decision. You’ve got this!!
   
   Check out the book It Starts With Food . I love this book. It is a great intro to food and its effects on the body. Also, a great resource for minimizing sugar is: www.iquitsugar.com. This Aussie can give you some fantastic information on what sugar does to the body and how to minimize or quit sugar altogether.
   
   Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Good luck!!!

(Strap in, this will be long. PLEASE check out the tl;dr at the bottom for an awesome resource I found, though.)

Totally. You are so not alone.

I find myself ruminating on food when I’m bored, happy, sad, stressed, procrastinating, etc. There is simply no mood or situation where food is not on my mind or shortly-to-be on my mind.

If I’m not thinking about food, I’m probably eating food, and usually eating too much (and, like you, sometimes in strange, seemingly unpalatable combinations). I have no off switch, even if I’m feeling like I’m nearing my limit. (No, I’ve never eaten to the point of puking, but I’m sure I’m capable of it. )

My weight fluxes pretty wildly between ~160 - 190 (5'8" F). (160 is the high end of normal for my gender/height on BMI, but it’s where I’m happiest with myself aesthetically -- it’s where clothes fit well/I still have a feminine shape and look healthy/strong. At below 160, my collarbones and jaw protrude too much and my legs look sickly thin/disproportionate to my body (even when I am in a weight lifting phase, when they just look toned but still wildly disproportionate to the rest of me (stupid apple-shaped figure)).) Anyway, when I’m down on the lower end of my weight spectrum, the following factors usually have contributed to my success:

-Exercise. I’ve discovered that if I’m not capable of restrictive dieting due to the constant food rumination. So exercise helps me knock down some of my calories. I suck at exercise, but when I am able to maintain a 3 times per week minimum (30 min cardio + weights), I see results. I tend to do this in waves (hence weight flux). I recently bought a Fitbit, and I love it. I don't even usually make my step goal, but just the structure of wearing it every day and checking it at the end of the day is better than nothing/has built over time into motivation to improve.

-Purge the kitchen. Yes, I will sometimes go to the trouble of leaving the apartment to get a bag of Sun Chips and eat most or all in one sitting. But that’s better than having a bunch of other crap in the house, too, to munch on later that day when I’m hungry again. So damage is often done, but not to the worst possible extent it could have been. (Sigh.) Purging is not a once-and-it’s-done kind of thing. I have to purge the kitchen repeatedly (probably on a monthly basis), as I will often buy crap when I shop in a state of (legitimate) hunger or when emotional. (This does result in some guilt re: wasting food/money, but over time I've worked past that to give food away, and now it's actually become a bit of a deterrent from purchasing some of the worst foods.)

-Replace. I love both crap and healthy stuff (luckily, I guess). If I can, on average, consume more healthy stuff than crap, that’s a win for me. I tend to lose weight even more rapidly (not crazy rapid, but definitely noticeably quicker) when I replace the crap with, at least, a lower calorie version of itself. (e.g., buy FiberOne brownies (surprisingly good for handling a chocolate craving). You learn very quickly that you will be ill if you eat more than 2 of those a day …. )

-Plan. If I’m going to ruminate on food, anyway, planning my meals, to an extent, helps me avoid fantasizing about unhealthy food and focus on what I’m going to eat. I don’t always have time to pack an awesomely healthy lunch, but I’ll at least try to throw a string cheese, a yogurt, a cottage cheese, and a pre-packaged container of carrots/hummus or apples/peanut butter in a bag to graze on during the day at work (90 c + 80 c + 180 c + 90 c or 150 c = between 440 and 590 calories), and I find that having multiple items makes me feel like I have something to look forward to. If I combine that with a breakfast of ½ cup of kefir and oatmeal (70 c + 120 = 190) or a low-calorie faux breakfast sandwich (260 c for a Jimmy Dean frozen bagel/turkey sausage/egg/cheese sandwich), I wind up fueled by 630 – 850 calories (out of an 1800 daily calorie budget), and that seems to result in my not bingeing (or bingeing as much, if I’m going to have an emotional binge) when I get home. If you don’t have dietary restrictions (you may notice most of what I listed above contains some dairy protein, so I recognize that may not work for all), and are super-busy and just looking to kill some pounds with minimal effort until your life eases up and you can improve your diet and lifestyle more holistically, these kinds of single-serve pre-packaged items can be godsends because you can buy a week’s worth and store pretty easily/they travel well. If you check their stats carefully, you can find pretty low-cal options, so even if you wind up eating more than one, you probably won't do too much damage to yourself. (I totally get that it’s not a sustainable/healthy way to eat for the long-term. I have a goal of cooking with whole foods regularly. I just don’t have time to eat/shop right now until probably post-summer due to work/school/personal scheduling issues. As a student, you may in the same bind.)

-Record. I track all of my calories (I love loseit.com, but of course there are tons of other sites/spreadsheet templates out there) as I consume them. Sometimes, if I’m in the right frame of mind, this will deter me from bingeing past my calorie budget for the day. Not always, but sometimes is better than never.

The closet eating story from one of the comments + eating multiple single-serve meals resonated so much with me. I have never been able to cut those behaviors out completely, only reduce them slowly over time. I have periods where I do well (like right before my wedding, when I not only reached my goal weight, but somehow lost more than my goal and my dress + underthings were too big on me (yikes)), and periods where I do terribly, and rather than letting myself feel discouraged, as time has gone on, I've been coming to terms with the fact that I will always have to be mindful of this issue/work harder than others to be/stay healthy. Please get help with this part, because self-compassion has been the biggest help to me in staying positive and being able to get back on the wagon/not let things get too out of control. As a college student, if you can get a head start on this, you will be doing so much better when you're my age (close to 30 :)).

I totally adore the idea of a mantra that helps you to be mindful of the moment versus the long-term (of a cute outfit or someone you're interested in, etc.). I have absolutely tried this in the past. For me, it has never worked :( It’s like the part of my brain that should respond to that goes into a zombie mode and just busts past reason.

Interesting related note: I just started taking ADD meds (diagnosed a few months ago), and when the medicine is active in my system, I do not impulsively eat, nor do I ruminate on food. I still wind up consuming about the same amount of calories (just later in the day), but I’m not distracted by food from moment to moment. This has been crazy for me, because for the first time, I understand what life is like for people who don’t have obsessional thoughts about food (like my husband, who routinely forgets to eat when he’s engrossed in something). I am capable of not compulsively eating and not ruminating on food. BUT at this point, only when aided by my medicine. This doesn’t mean I’m not capable of learning from this and building on this for the future, but it does take a load off, including some of the shame/guilt I feel. My psychiatrist explained the neurochemical issues related to this when describing how the ADD meds work in brains like mine, and I can’t dredge most of it up from the recesses of my brain now, but the gist was, for some of us, our brain chemistry is different, and we need to work with/around the differences related to how our brain manages neurotransmitters to achieve some of the same things that others may not need to develop behavioral or cognitive or medicinal workarounds for. (And that’s fine, other people may need help with other areas where they may have deficits or excesses that result in a need for developing their own workarounds to manage things we do effortlessly. Chemistry is weird :)) So bottom line: everyone’s different, and it’s important to keep on keeping on with trial and error and acceptance when dealing with this issue.

tl;dr:

For more professional resources:

Check out the Beck Diet Solution book (I super-recommend it (if your college library doesn't have it, you may be able to find a cheap used copy on amazon.com))

http://www.amazon.com/Beck-Diet-Solution-Train-Person/dp/0848731735

She provides the worksheets for free online: http://www.beckdietsolution.com/free-cbt-worksheets/

Also check out healthmonth.com (it's a health behavior improvement online game that you can play it for free -- it's cute :)).

I've been tracking on MFP for over a year and a half and I'm the same height as you- my username on there is the same as my Reddit name if you want to be friends :)

I shoot for 1550 (my pre-preg weight is 130 lbs. and I'm still in the first trimester) and I count my exercise using a fitbit charge 2. Granted, I've also been puking a bit quite often so some days I go over my goal and some days my diary says I made it, but I'm really under because vomit. Yay. Carefully tracking my weight helps, and so far it's pretty steady so I think I'm OK. And it's useful to keep tracking food anyway just to stay in the habit. Maintenance is tough as hell. 1200 is too low for us, especially as pregnant women our height. It will feel scary and weird to up your calories again, but I'm going to share a few tools with you to help.

Now, I don't know how familiar you are with the MFP app, but if you tap the "nutrition" button, and set it to calories, check towards the upper middle of your screen. It'll say "day view". Tap it, and it will change to "week view". If you're worried about going out to eat, or hitting up social gatherings where people force food on you, etc. then track your calories by week instead of just focusing on the daily. It's a lifesaver of a tool during the Christmas season so that you can budget for a few of grandma's cookies at a family gathering, then shave a few calories off the rest of your days that week.

If you're worried about watching your weight on a chart, I'd highly recommend using the Ovia pregnancy app for weight tracking. You type in your pre-pregnancy weight and your end goal and it graphs your daily weight on a chart. It also shows a shaded grey region that is where you're aiming for in order to stay on track for your goals. Oh, and it syncs with fitbit if you use a fitness watch to record your sleep and steps ;)

For general weight tracking, Libra (Android) and Happy Scale (iPhone) are great. They take a rolling average of the weights that you type in every day to show a trend, and they predict when you'll hit your weight goal. It's nice to not have one day of constipation leave me all worried- Libra averages it in and calms me down. It will also let you know if you're on track to hit your "goal" early (i.e. "hey, lady slow down you're gaining too fast!) If you want more info, those apps are pretty popular on /r/loseit.

Next, I'm going to recommend you two books. The Beck Diet Solution and The Diet Trap Solution. These books don't tell you what to eat- they're by a well known psychologist (I showed her books to my therapist and he immediately knew who she was) whose focus is on helping people who have/had a bad relationship with food. (Note- in her first book she recommends against weighing yourself daily. She's since rescinded that advice and recommends people weigh themselves daily and use either an app (like Libra/Happy Scale) or a calculator to take the weekly average.)

Dr. Beck offers advice for things like how to give into a little bit of a craving while eating it slowly to enjoy it, which is a downright necessary skill in pregnancy. Or reminding ourselves of our goal (a healthy baby and healthy mom) before we eat. Not eating standing up. Not eating while distracted. She lays out a plan to slowly introduce these tips into our lives one at a time to naturally make it easier to eat healthier. Plus, you only have to read a few pages a day, and as a mother I can only imagine that you only have so much time to spare on that.

The "Diet Trap" book is a guide for how to survive things like parties and the holiday season. I really think that you'd find her books helpful and that they'd help ease some of your anxiety about healthy maintenance/gain. She does recommend tracking your food and counting calories so her advice isn't going to push you off the rails- it'll just give you more tools to put in your toolbox.

Last tool: /r/fitpregnancy. In my honest opinion, those ladies put me to shame, lol. It's a sub of women who work out, track CICO, etc. through pregnancy and it's not as active as babybumps, but it's still worth subscribing and searching around in there.

Hopefully all those extra tools can help!

The best advice i will give you is to go to book store, or online and buy a bodybuilding book. I recommend burn the fat, feed the muscle by tom venuto. dont be intimidated by the word "bodybuilding". Also check out the exercise cure. Since you have medical problems that book will help you also. Both are amazing reads and the two most helpful books i read. Anyway, Bodybuilding doesnt mean becoming a massive machine, its a lifestyle that involves taking care of your body. The discipline that you get from body building will let you look how you want to look, and will help you maintain that look for a long time. But if you want to skip the reading ill give you some tips and pointers that will help you.

1: mental preperation

Almost everyone i know who starts a diet ends up either falling off of it, or gaining weight after they reach their goal. Ive personally done it before also. The reason this happens is because people are ignorant to how dieting works, and how their bodys work. In order to lose fat you need to fight off bad habits and cravings, and replace them with healthy habits. It takes about a month to break bad habits and create new ones, so the first month is going to be really hard. But heres some stuff that will help make it easier for you.

● write down your goals on paper and look at them daily. You should have a short term goal (ex. Lose 10 pounds in 1 month), a 3 month goal (ex. Lose 20 pounds of fat, and be able to run a 5k) and a 1 year goal (ex. run a half marathon). Writing your goals down and reading them will help motivate you and remind you of what you are trying to achive.

● write down daily tasks, but write them as if you already did them. So write down say "i walked today" i did 30 push ups today" "i rode my bike for an hour today." Doing this may sound stupid but it will help you create positive habits, and will rewire your subconcious into doing these tasks. Of you dont write them like that and instead say "i will workout" "i will run later" and so on, you may end up putting off your exercise or procrastinating. This is also great for creating non exercise habits, and breaking bad ones also.

● track your calories! Use my fitness pal, its a free app and its amazing. Track down everything you eat, and visualize exactly what is going into your body. Nutrition is about 80% of the work when it comes to losing weight. The app also will tell you how many calories you can eat to lose whatever weight you want to lose, so its helpful.

2: starting off small

● weight training is key for losing fat. Lifting also wont make you huge, unless you want it to. Start off with a beginner routine with light weights. The weights shouldnt be so heavy that you cant lift them, but also shouldnt be to light that you can do over 12 reps with ease. You want to be able to do between 8-12 reps 3x while feeling it. If you dont want to use weight check out /r/bodyweightfitness for workouts using only your body.

Your body will drop fat fast this way.

3: do cardio

Cardio is very important for your body. It will really help you in the long run. You should do cardio 3x a week, any kind of cardio for an hour. Hiking, walking, bike riding, oliptical machine, steps, etc. Cardio will improve your endurance, help with your asthma and also will make your heart healthy.

4: cut out as much salt and sugar as you can!

That will get rid of fat and bloating and make you thinner. One really easy way to reduce your sugar intake is to only drink water. If you make tea or coffee use splenda. Dont listen to the fear mongerers that say its bad for you. Its really fine and wont do harm to you unless you use like 40 packets of it. Stay away from sodas and juice.

5: eat consistantly, and for the love of god dont skip breakfast!

You can buy a container of egg whites from the store for about 3 dollars. Make a cup of egg whites in the morning and grab a fruit before school and you have a nice breakfast that takes less then 5 minutes to make. Hard boil eggs and grab and go if you need to. Breakfast is super important so dont skip it! Also you can eat as many times a day as you want so long as you stay within your calorie count. I recommend eating 4-5 meals a day to fight off hunger. But you can do it however. Just make sure its consistant, your body isnt meant to yo-yo.

6: sleep!

Lack of sleep leads to poor habits, poor dietary choices and also slows down your body. Get no less then 6 hours of sleep a night, and aim for 8 hours or more.

Hope this helps and i look forward to seeing your progress pictures on here. This is a great community here and i hope you stay on track and reach your dream body! Best of luck :)

This all looks fine to me. HR training it super simple, you just want your heart rate in that zone. I don't think taking breaks is going to have a big impact at all.

Objectively, the best thing you can do is lose some weight so running becomes feasible. That 10 mile walk is a great idea, but it isn't really training your aerobic system.

You might also want to add in some "extra" stuff. For ultrarunning balance, strength, and coordination are all essential. There's tons of resources out there to help you build a program, but I'd recommend mixing it in now. If you can commit to it before you start running you have a really good chance of avoiding injuries.

I'll briefly go over some crosstraining basics, these are just my opinions. Most athletes are good runners, but most runners aren't good athletes. IMO this simple fact explains why 80% of runners encounter an injury sometime in their career. If you want to race ultras the safest way to do so is to start treating yourself like an athlete.

1. For strength training, go low reps high weight. Runners don't need tons of muscle mass, but the muscle they have needs to be strong. This can be dangerous if you lift without proper form so with movements that feel easy. I wouldn't encourage you to jump into squats and deadlifts if those feel uncomfortable. The leg press machine, bulgarian split squats, weighted lunges, and calf raises are good examples of simpler, less stressful movements. You don't need to do a ton of sets of these, or even do that many of them. I normally lift 1-2 times a week, doing three sets of three exercises for 3-5 reps.
   
2. Hate weightlifting? No problem, bodyweight exercises are also awesome. David Roche's 5 minute mountain workout is a great example of an unweighted routine that works your balance, coordination, and musculature. I would strongly recommend working some bodyweight stuff into your routine. Anything on one leg is awesome, anything involving squatting is great, and anything that challenges your core is great. The more muscle groups you need to recruit the better
   
3. Actually finding good exercises can be daunting. A good starting place is Jay dicharry's anatomy for runners. It'll help give you a handle on the strengths and weaknesses of your body, and start you down the path to improving them.
   
   This is an ongoing process that'll follow you across your career as a runner, but stick with it and I guarantee it'll pay dividends.
   
   One other note. Because you haven't started running yet you haven't had a chance to make the mistakes most novice runners run into. I'll list those out briefly, this is just what I've seen in myself and other runners.
   
   

• Slow cadence. I was running with slow cadence for years, and it caused all sorts of problems with my stride. I was bouncing too much which stressed out my calfs, I was leaning to the right which stressed out my quads ect. Cadence is a personal thing, but generally you should try to stay above 170 steps a minute.
  
• Bad programming. The number one way runners get injured is too much too soon. Adjust your weekly mileage slowly and be patient. The best way to get faster is to slowly build up your mileage without getting injured. You're doing a ton of aerobic training now but that's not running training. When you actually start running I would recommend doing couch to 5k, then taking it super slow from there. You have a whole running career infront of you!
  
• Poor glute engagement. Buy that book from dicharry, it'll go into better detail on this than I can. The long and short of it is many runners don't engage their glutes when they run, shifting more work to the calves and quads. This slows them down and makes them way more injury prone.
  
  Good luck!

A great first step is to follow the mantra "don't drink your calories" (whether soda, alcohol, juice, or milk). They really do add a lot of calories. The only thing that's slowed down my weight loss in the last few couple weeks has been drinking alcohol more than once a week (in those weeks, I've gained 5 pounds instead of losing ~1 pound). I've quickly snapped back, but it made it really clear to me.

Since making a more concerted effort 5 years ago, I'm about 40 pounds lighter. But I've also gained muscle mass, so I've lost more fat than that and feel great even though I could certainly get in even better shape (and I plan to). It's not setting any records, and I'm sure I could have gotten there faster with greater effort and better techniques.

I'd tried losing weight over the years before that and have been involved in sports for much of my life (though taking breaks off-season, just going to the gym on my own in college, then slacking for a few years, etc.). But one of the major inflection points was ~5 years ago.

The first big change was (re-)joining 24-Hour Fitness and taking 3 hour-long cardio classes per week with my girlfriend as sort of a challenge and to impress her. I knew I could force myself to adjust to it over a few weeks or months since I had some discipline left over from high school sports. You might want to start with 1 class, then 2, then 3 over a couple months. (She's now my wife, so it's not the only good thing that came out of those classes :)

I gradually worked in some running, to the point of 4 work-outs per week (usually 3 classes and 1 10k run).

After a few years of that, I found a Groupon for LA Boxing for kickboxing classes, which looked like fun, so I took that up. I first did it once a week, then gradually replaced my 24-Hour Fitness classes, since it was fun and burns about 1,000 calories per class. Group (kick)boxing classes which focus on endurance and intensity are great. You'll definitely lose a lot of weight and get in better shape if you stick with it, though it can be tough at first (even coming from the 4 weekly workouts above). Note that I'm referring to classes which focus on a fair amount of technique, high-intensity cardio, real boxing gloves and bags, as a contrast to "cardio kickboxing" at 24-Hour Fitness which is not bad in the grand scheme of things, but burns fewer calories and is essentially choreography.

I've hit a new inflection point in February by following a slow-carb diet. I'm also an ova-lacto vegetarian, but that's never done much directly to help me lose weight in the 15 years I've been doing it. I'm part-way into the book The 4-Hour Body which covers the diet (though I'd read about it from his other books and online before this and started on the basics of minimizing carbs and increasing protein back in February) and other minimum-effort ways to lose weight. You might be able to skip some of my steps above by going straight to this.

I've also recently switched all my exercise to a fight-technique-focused kickboxing gym 3 times a week with a 20-minute bike ride to and from. This new gym definitely raises my heart rate but it's less focused on sustained cardio than on correct form. It's only been 4 weeks, so it may be hard to say, but the slight reduction in cardio (and mostly reducing to 3 weekly workouts from 4) hasn't slowed my progress much as I had slightly feared (the diet is probably helping counter any minor losses I may have otherwise had).

Use MyFitnessPal as others have suggested. Keep a paper journal (Moleskine or one of those .99 composition notebooks, whatever) if that helps; whichever you can commit to better.

Eat CONSCIOUSLY. Most people eat so many grams of sugar and carbs without thinking about it that just knowing roughly how much you're eating can help to curb that nasty habit.

Eat things that are more fulfilling and nutrient dense - vegetables are your best friend, even if you have to slather them in cheese/butter to get yourself to enjoy them at first.

Cutting down on sugar will be immensely beneficial. It's an addiction. Treat it like an addiction. Consuming sugars and carbs trigger reactions in our brains very similar to consuming drugs. It's scary. Once you break your addiction to sugar/carbs you'll start finding that you no longer have a taste for things that are loaded with either of those things.

Read books like The 4 Hour Chef and The 4 Hour Body.

Do yourself a favor and keep reading this subredditt as well as places like /r/progresspics ; know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. It's not going to be an easy journey, but you can absolutely do it. It took you many years to get to this point, and it's not too late to live a healthy life where walking long distances isn't a daunting task. You'll be able to run and play with your son.

Speaking of your son, try your best to instill good habits in him. Fast food is bad. If you don't have the time to cook dinner, choose healthier "fast food" options like Chipotle WITHOUT THE SHELL, Boston Market WITHOUT the stuffing, sweet potatoes, cornbread, desserts. Encourage him to go outside and play, join a sports team, and not allow him to get on a path to obesity and bad health.

Desserts should be for special occasions only - however, you don't have to constantly tell yourself no. If you're absolutely craving something and find yourself thinking about nothing else, go ahead and have a bite of something sweet. Portion control and self restraint are key here.

Do not buy unhealthy foods. If it's in your house, you're going to eat it at some point.

Don't buy into the "low fat = good for you" marketing. Fat is fine. It's those carbs and sugars that are your enemy when consumed in excess.

You're so overweight right now that you could find the pounds melting off at a very quick rate if you change your habits.

If you can't commit to eating cleanly 100%, that's okay. Start out with easy stuff like no soft drinks - if you want, drink diet soda instead to make it easier. The chemicals in there aren't ideal but they're a hell of a lot better than the loads of sugar in regular soda.

I could go on and on. It's a wonderful thing that you're reaching out for help. Remember that you're never alone. If you need some help with motivation or advice, there are people here that will always be around.

Also, last but certainly not least - see a doctor. I'm not a doctor so the advice I've given you is not to be taken as such. I know it may be difficult, but it's important that you know where you stand as far as your heart etc. are concerned. You don't want to over strain yourself or injure yourself from exercising beyond your body's current limits.

Keep with it.

You can do this.

If your partner is not supportive, then you need to deal with that first. He should be supportive - that's part of the reason why he's your partner.

As for wanting to eat junk food again - what are you eating in place of junk food. You need to fill in that gap with food that's healthy and filling but doesn't gross you out. In any case, it gets better over time. I don't crave food as much as I used to.

Keep the junk food out of the house. I like potato chips as an occasional treat but I make sure I don't keep any around the house. If there's some junk food that I've purchased from the market, I make sure to keep it in the car outside - it prevents me from inadvertently snacking.

It's okay to eat some junk food once in a while. Just make sure it's a planned thing and that you don't go overboard. Eat that treat meal while drinking water in between bites and try to pay attention to when you feel like you are satisfied - when you are satisfied, throw away the rest or save it for later. Eating without distractions (no TV) increases my satisfaction of the meal and prevents me from overeating treat meals.

Are you logging your foods? that's like the most important thing for me in my weight loss journey.

I recommend this book to help you develop the mental tools to becoming thin:
https://www.amazon.com/Beck-Diet-Solution-Train-Person/dp/0848732758


Good luck!

well, I have just joined a crossfit affiliate gym. So far, we have only been doing bodyweight stuff, so mostly stuff that around the internet ive found called travel workouts of the day (apparently because you can do them while travelling, since they require little to no equipment)

HERE is a listing of a lot of these workouts, and HERE is an awesome generator that picks a workout for you on random. Just select bodyweight (or whichever category you like) and it'll generate a workout for you

Don't really know how fittit thinks about cross fit, but I think if you don't take it too seriously, and just take it for what it is (a high intensity, short duration workout) and of course, not become obsessed, then I think it is a good workout. I personally like it because I like its style, but I am in no position to say whether it is worse/better than anything else out there

Also, you might wanna checkout You are your own gym which has its own subreddit at /r/YAYOG which seemed like an awesome book, but I've been seeing better progress with xFit (but that, in all honesty, is probably because I have joined the gym with some of my friends and my wife, and I find the company much more motivating than working out alone, and keeps me from skipping workouts. I have been much more committed now than I was when I was following that book, so it is probably entirely my fault and not the book's)

if you are still reading, sorry I poured out such a long reply, but honestly, i LOVE BW workouts... they are so cool and simple and you can do them everywhere. Stick to them, or add them to any other routine you've got, they're god damned awesome, and at the very least, they are SO MUCH FUN :D

Trainers can be good, but be aware that personal training is a totally unregulated field, so you can have any piece of paper and be a "certified" trainer. Men's Health can be a good magazine, but a few issues and you're good. I've found that they repeat a lot of their older routines and label them as new, or combine two and do the same thing. As a matter of fact, I recommend Men's Health books more than the magazines. Their Big Book of Exercises is a great resource, especially if you want to try your hand at making your own routine. I also agree that looking on blogs is a great idea. I'm going for my certification in personal training right now and haven't quite been brave enough yet to make my own routine, but I just recently finished this Shortcut to Size and really liked it. If you just google exactly what you want, chances are you'll find a great routine that you'll love.

Hope this helps!

I don't know how much you like to read, but the book that helps me out quite a bit is The End of Overeating by David Kessler. Every time I fall off the wagon, I reread it. It becomes a lot easier to say "No, I'll pass on the Orange Chicken from Panda Express and get something that will actually fill me up".


I commend you for taking action at such a young age. I didn't start doing it until I was 23-24.

Tips:

You're at an age where lifting will start to become beneficial (as you go through puberty, testosterone pretty much spikes). Use that to your advantage. Strength workouts will help spike your metabolism, but I would not aim for any more than 3 days per week.

Ease into the diet. Going from 3-4k calories a day to 1900 will be a challenge. What I did initially was make small swaps (actual examples from what I did). E.g., instead of regular Coke, drink a diet. Instead of hitting McDonalds/fast food 7 days per week, drop it to 3 days. Instead of getting pizza twice a week, swap it to every other week. Instead of a snack cake/candy bar, eat a piece or two of fruit. Eat home made and healthy meals that still taste good-my go-to meal at this point is chicken breast (baked or made in a slow cooker), sweet potatoes (microwaved, baked, mashed, etc), and some form of veggie. As long as you're not pan frying everything in a ton of oil or butter, that type of meal is a significant improvement over the typical junk food and is actually filling.

I strongly dislike salads, even now. So, I took inspiration from Wendy's. Adding a handful of mixed berries or a chopped up apple as well as a serving of protein (chicken breast, typically) to a large serving of mixed greens made salads infinitely more appealing to me.

Consistency trumps all, yet one meal off your plan won't derail a month's worth of progress. The key is to keep it to one meal. So, on my current meal/nutrition plan (that I've been on for the bulk of the last 6 months), I eat 40 meals per week (6 meals per day for 5 days, 5 meals per day for 2 days). If 1 out of 40 meals is off plan, it does not derail me-I might bloat some due to water retention, but it does not derail this train.

Establishing routines makes it all easier. I've been on my current workout routine for over six months. My mornings are now on autopilot. It is just before 5AM where I am at, and as soon as I click "comment" on this post, I'm leaving for the gym. I'd rather futz around on social media, but I NEED to get this workout in before my work day starts.

I've read so many books that I honestly cannot say that any particular one is the most important. However, here's a list of really good ones:

• Starting Strength. Mark Rippetoe. I've read all three editions. The books have greatly influenced the way I lift, especially in the obvious sense of proper form for barbell lifts.
  
  
• Practical Programming For Strength Training. Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. Simple explanations of a lot of things related to training even nutrition.
  
  
• Beyond Bodybuilding. Pavel Tsatsouline. Amazing book filled with numerous lifts with the goal of using strength training to develop mass.
  
• Relax Into Stretch and Super Joints by Pavel as well. If you have issues with mobility or flexibility, these books are awesome.
  
• 5 3 1. Jim Wendler. I'm fairly certain the majority of people know what this is, but if you haven't read it, I encourage reading both editions and the one for powerlifting, especially if you're running 5/3/1 right now. All three books are a huge resource for determining how to program assistance and conditioning.
  
• Easy Strength. Pavel and Dan John This was a great read. It was filled with tons of things from articles written by Dan John as well as just a massive look at how to appropriately program strength training for people at numerous levels.
  
• 4 Hour Body. Tim Ferriss. This was an amazing read. It, like Pavel's Power to the People, was a great read on complete minimalism of training towards a goal.
  
  I've read so many more books than that. Since these are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head, I'd say that they are the ones that have made the biggest impression from reading them.

I would REALLY recommend reading the book It Starts With Food as it not only explains, in simple terms, what Paleo is all about but also goes in to our psychological relationship with food.

It might also be worth checking out the free resources on their website;

• Shopping List
  
• Meal Planning Template
  
• Guide to Sneaky Sugars
  
  If you're interested the Whole30 Program is a great introduction to Paleo - though it's not an easy challenge. I would recommend anyone new to Paleo at least have a look at it.
  
  In regards to your questions;
  
  

1. This depends on your goals but, honestly, if you're completely revising the way you eat then I would focus on that and try to avoid anything else at the moment. Once you have the hang of the food then I would start introducing more exercise.
   
2. I haven't found any apps that are that good. My strategy is to sit down on a Saturday to make a meal plan for the whole week. I browse through my favourite Paleo sites and choose recipes, then write the entire shopping list. I spend Sunday shopping and prepping food for the week. I've found that preparation is the key to not falling off the wagon.
   
3. If your diet has included a lot of sugars and you're going pretty strictly Paleo then you'll notice headaches in the first few days. If you're a coffee drinker then keep drinking coffee, just have it black, you don't need to add caffeine withdrawals to sugar withdrawals. Give it a week and you'll be fine. After two weeks you'll be feeling better and after three you'll feel like a new person.
   
4. Like /u/skullydazed said, drink beer or cider if you want to but don't try to pretend it's Paleo. If you're really looking to lose weight and you NEED to drink alcohol then drink something like Vodka + Soda Water + Fresh Lime. I would recommend skipping the alcohol at least for a few weeks to see the difference it makes. Beer is full of crap your body doesn't need and it really can be hard to lose weight without removing beer from your diet.
   
   Most importantly; figure out what works for you. 80-90% healthy but maintainable is better than 100% healthy but unrealistic.

So, there's a book that goes along with it that i'd say is worth a read or two before getting into it. It's not so much a "diet" as it is a lifestyle moving forward.

Results: Acne has calmed down, I was like a 1 small pimple kinda guy, now its pretty much zero ever. I've lost around 20# of body fat, total lost is 35, but i account 15 to water/whatever. My energy "feels" more stable. No longer have the downtime in mid-day or after meals. I feel hungry less often. I don't crave sugar, or stress eat.

I sleep way better. I wake up with way more energy and focus.

My fiance's results; Keep in mind, her goal was only to be supportive and try and clean up her sugar intake. She went from 120 to 110lb, but only lost a bit of bloating/fat. She was tiny, she didnt need to lose anything, but she did. She feels better, but still has major chocolate cravings. I think she's maintaining 110-113 now, which for 5' is adequate I believe.


The best part about this eating style is that it's not about portion control or counting things. It's about just making a good decision and evaluating your decision on "is it good or bad for me body". There's no neutral in that argument. I think the thing I miss the most is probably my 1-2 beers a week. Once I hit my goal weight, right around 225#, I think I'll reintroduce occasional beers and maybe some cheese / rice.

Also, It appears, for me, that eating well is my "key" habit. When I eat well, I tend to work better ( minus reddit) and when I work better, I go home happier, when I am home, i feel more positive and am cheerful about washing dishes, laundry, cleaning litter boxes.

I do the weights at the gym one day/week but most of my strength and core training is bodyweight because BALANCE is where the strength comes from (see LeBron article below). One leg bridges, straight leg deadlifts, etc are a couple of the exercises runners should be doing to strengthen their drive.

You can find most of these exercises in https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Runners-Unlocking-Potential-Prevention/dp/1620871599. It helps to get some bands and maybe an exercise ball. If you can get a couple of dumbells that helps too.

Heres's some other great bodyweight exercises for runners, specifically for strengthening glutes: https://www.popsugar.com.au/fitness/Workout-Sleeping-Butt-Syndrome-44485654

And this one is interesting. LeBron James is one of the strongest, fittest guys in the game but he had some injuries and performance issues to fix. This video shows some of the body weight training he trainer put him on using bands and exercise balls. And he says this is what turned everything around for him. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22778062/how-lebron-james-fixed-back-track-play-all-82-games-nba

.. and he paid the former Navy Seal $1 million US for this training! That says a lot about the value of bodyweight training. :)

I think you implicitly equating pace times with worthwhile knowledge is a bit superficial (which perhaps is why some feathers got ruffled), but as you encountered in your previous thread, people telling you simply to focus on training/fitness and forget about stride length are simply incorrect. Yes, stride length, just like cadence, may be misleading or even unhelpful taken in isolation, but as part of a holistic program (as one can infer you're working on), these can offer meaningful gains.

I've read about 500 pp. recently from two expert-level books, Jay Dicharry's Anatomy for Runners and Running Rewired. My wife first heard him at a USATF Level III distance running clinic, then we went to his lab in OR. He works with Olympians, Ironman champs, etc. etc. Anyway, he says stride length boils down to two things:
* Increased muscle fiber recruitment. IIRC, this comes from plyos.
* Increased muscle size and strength. (From weight training.)

He makes the point (and I think this is really what you're getting at) that most runners will get more gains from doing strength workouts dedicated to helping the above, rather than just doing another run. All that to say, I'd highly commend both of those books to you (as you are clearly serious enough to have the appetite to wade through; AFR especially is not beach reading), but Running Rewired has more targeted workouts per your question. Cheers!

I wasn't going to say anything until I saw this:

> Most of your skills are due to your size don't forget that

And now I feel compelled.

> Most runners are already lean and mean, so it seems taboo to talk about weight in these circles.

When you don't wear your insecurities on your sleeve it's easy to talk about your weight, and we do it all the time. There's a series of books about it.

> Flash back to me running at a lean 190, or 80lbs ago. Running was still hard, it's something I've never been good at.

Because you were overweight then too, with a BMI of around 26. As you later point out, it does not matter if it is muscle or fat. It's extra weight that you must move, requiring greater energy expenditure.

> but I am still much stronger than I was running, especially in the legs from squats and deadlifts

I bet your power-to-weight ratio is worse, not better. But you'll never know, so you can believe what you want.

> Some of you hear 270 lbs and picture me as this huge obese guy, but honestly i'm not THAT big, I have more a of a powerlifter body nowadays so it isnt 270lbs of straight fat.

Every fat man who goes to the gym once in a while is a power lifter.

> I was basically just granny power walking with the very little bit of glycogen I had left in my legs.

You were not out of glycogen. Nothing in a couch-to-5k program is going to put you in that position.

> I wasn't even remotely tired from a cardio perspective, its just my legs can NOT handle this weight.

Were you wearing a heart rate monitor? I am willing to bet you were in at least zone 3 if not zone 4. Lower body discomfort tends to drown out cardio vascular discomfort.

> Put a 75-100lb vest on, and we're in the ballpark.

Actually, no. This is not remotely accurate. As you also pointed out previously and know to be true, because you weigh 270 pounds your legs have adapted to moving that weight just to function day-to-day. I can barely walk while carrying 100 pounds, and I'm willing to bet you would have almost as difficult of a time. I guarantee that you would not be running with a 100 pound weight vest on if you can't handle couch to 5k.

> Imagine how embarrassing it was to see me come in limping across the finish line with a 21:45

For someone who weighs 270 pounds and is only in week 4 of C25k, a sub 11 minute mile is not terrible.

> disgusted with my performance, breathing like I had just run a marathon

But you just said that running doesn't make you tired "from a cardio perspective" so why were you breathing heavy? Also, by the way, marathon pace doesn't induce particularly hard breathing (except maybe in the sub 2:30 elite class?) or particularly high heart rate because it would be unsustainable for the time it takes to run a marathon. You mean breathing like you had just run a 2 mile speed trial. It never gets easier, you just get faster.

> Is it my cardio? Not really, I wasn't even really tired up until the last half mile and I gutted it out

If you weren't breathing hard until the last half mile it means you were not running at the right pace. For a two mile time trial, you should start breathing very hard almost immediately because you should be running above your VO2 max threshold for that short of a distance. It also means that yes, yes, it is very much your cardio. You are not nearly as fit as you think you are. You're fat. The two are mutually exclusive.

> because personally I believe cardio is largely mental.

You would be wrong. Cardio fitness is an incredibly well studied aspect of human physiology. It is not mental.

> y theory is once you reach a certain weight(and this weight is largely based on your height, amount of muscle mass, and training experience) you are absolutely fucked(and I mean bent over the kitchen counter fucked) as runner. I mean it really didn't make sense.

Why wouldn't it?

Did you take high school physics?

This is not rocket science. Try running up a hill. Is it harder than running on a flat surface? Yes it is! Why? Because you have to fight against the force of gravity. Lifting a weight is a lot harder than rolling a barbell around on the ground for the same reason. You must overcome gravity to perform work. When you move a heavier mass it is harder.

> And yet I was still like 20x faster than I am right now

No you weren't. You did not run a 2 mile time trial in less than 1 minutes.

> despite me being much stronger and a more experienced runner.

You cannot become less experienced in running over time. You can lose conditioning but not experience.

> I used to run like a runaway hospital patient. No grace, no form, no technique, no breathing, nothing.

So you were not an experienced runner then? You were a rank amateur? Got it.

> I have breathing down to a T

Which explains why you didn't start breathing hard (e.g., 1 breath per step) for your two mile time trial until the bottom 800 meters, right?

> my legs are stronger,

(but your power-to-weight ratio is lower)

> I have pretty much mastered the POSE technique

The what now?

> and I personally think I run pretty sexy for a massive powerlifter.

Again, you are wrong. I promise you that the way you imagine your fat sloshing around while you run is not the way it actually sloshes around.

> Mostly because I was in the target weight zone

You were about 60 pounds heavier than your ideal racing weight of around 155, or BMI of 21. Show me an Olympic runner in any distance (not sprinters) with a BMI of 26 and I'll eat my words.

> As your weight decreases your running performance goes up. This is what I have seen.

To a point. Most people will tell you that their race PRs are usually at higher-than-usual weight (though typically only 2-3% higher than their normal BMI which is probably 21-23). This is usually because PRs come from tapering down mileage in preparation for an event which causes temporary weight gain due to lower mileage for the same eating habits. And there is certainly a point at which your BF% is so low that weight loss equals muscle loss. It's all about power-to-weight ratio.

> Don't ever get fat.

Preach bruh.

> I am not even closed to being one of the most experienced runners on this forum

But that doesn't stop you from spouting advice now does it?

> Most of your skills are due to your size don't forget that.

... And this is why I'm bringing you back down to earth, because this is literally the least informed thing anyone has ever said on this subreddit and if you've been here for more than the 10 seconds it took you to find the "Text Post" button you'd know that's saying a lot.

Running skill takes discipline, putting in the hard workouts that most people won't do. It means constantly putting yourself in physical discomfort over extended periods of time to work toward a goal.

The beautiful thing about this is that it is almost impossible to put in the level of effort to become a skilled runner and stay fat. All I need to do is look at you and I know instantly that you are not a skilled runner and have not put in the work. You might have been a skilled runner in the past but you sure as shit aren't one now.

> Dont ever talk down to big runners and say they are not trying hard enough.

You have not tried hard enough for long enough or you wouldn't still be big.

> and running fat and being overweight is by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.

It never gets any easier. You just get faster.

I'm currently in Monk Mode myself. I'm probably only going for at most a 3mo. term at this (Started Dec. 1st). It sounds like you have a good plan. I'm focusing on the following things:

• Meditating: the best way to re-program your brain IMO ("Wherever you go there you are")
  
• Teaching myself Jazz piano
  
• Diet (Here's my diet)
  
• Fitness (Here's my fitness bible)
  
• Career Development (This)
  
• Productivity & Time Management (too many books to mention, OP PM me if you want this list)
  
• Not watching Porn & Masturbating less frequently (Highly recommended /r/NoFap)
  
• No Alcohol
  
  For learning to cook I highly recommend this book.
  
  For addressing approach anxiety I recommend The Rules of the Game.
  
  This is an excellent book on habit change. (OP this is how you start to break down those "masturbatory" habits)
  
  Also, Monk Mode is basically an exercise in stoicism. This book is awesome.
  
  
  Since you'll have plenty of time to read here are some other Books I recommend:
  "No More Mr. Nice Guy"
  "Models: Attracting Women Through Honesty"
  "The Talent Code"
  "Man's Search for Meaning"
  "Flow"
  
  Final thoughts OP. 6 months is definitely a worthy goal however studies show that 90 days is usually what it takes to create new habits and routines. You have to be consistent though. Just food for thought.
  
  
  (Edit: I suck at formatting)
  
  
  
  
  

OP I'm here to help you out. You want real advice? You want to avoid the filthy hatred of the other opinions here?

Brendan Brazier. Look him up. Check out his bio.

He has a free site up called Thrive Foreword with a lot of very helpful videos.

He's released probably the best damn nutrition guide ever.

He's also released a Recipe book. and a Fitness Exercise book. I myself was not really impressed with the Fitness book, but the recipes are awesome.

All that said. This is intelligent, well rounded advice for Vegan athletes. Granted, his own techniques were developed for Ironman Triathlon (which is nothing to scoff at), so you'll get a full body strength as opposed to top heavy swole.

But, the advice and ideas in the book are fantastic anyways. It'll help you understand what health and diet really need. You'll just need to work in a better upper body workout on top of this.

If you're serious about making a long term life change to better your health and fitness (hint: you should be) I think the book Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle by Tom Venuto is where you should start. It's where I wish I started. Tom, an accomplished body builder, will give you tools to do more than I could ever type out here.

For a 2 birds 1 stone situation get a free audible credit (lots of ways to do this if you look, or just buy it), download the audiobook, and listen to it while you run and lift! Training for my 2 marathons would have been impossible without a motivating fitness book playing in my ears. If you get the book (which you should) don't skip the parts you think are "cheesy" or "uncomfortable", especially the goal setting.

Support is another huge thing. Surround yourself with people who will praise your efforts or better, join them. If my 53 y/o dad didn't push me to go from a 5k to a 10k I would have never run one and subsequently probably never run 2 marathons or climbed Mt Rainier. Little acts of support from loved ones goes a long way. /r/fitness is another place I like most days.

Finally as a over simplistic guideline to not just lose weight, but transform your body:

1. Eat enough of the right stuff in the right quantities. Try to eat natural foods 80-90% of the time and "cheat" 20-10% of the time. This alone solves many fat loss plateaus. Get enough protein.
   
2. Do some form of resistance training. I had great success with SL 5x5. Starting Strength is also popular on reddit. Now I do exclusively /r/bodyweightfitness beginner routine and it's a blast.
   
3. Do some form of cardio. Is cardio required to lose weight and get super lean? Nope. Does it improve overall health and if done in correct amounts aid fat loss? Yep. And if you want to prioritize cardio over weights then go for it! But remember, even track stars lift.
   
4. Mental health and recovery. You just ran as far as you could 7 days in a row? Oh cool bro, and now you can't train for a week while you recover from being stupid. And now you're burned out and hate working out and can't get motivated? No duh, you did crossfit as-heavy-as-possible before you knew good form. On the flip side don't be like my gf was when she went paleo for a month during finals and ended up breaking down crying because she couldn't eat a chocolate bar. Be smart.
   
5. Remember the nutritional hierarchy of importance and relax.

Yes!!!! Like the other post says - unless you're an athlete protein isn't really a concern, assuming you eat a fairly balanced, healthy diet. If you are an athlete I can't recommend this book enough. Actually, all of his books are great.

I went vegan over 4 years ago and have never felt better or been healthier in my life! Plus it's nice to know that I'm doing my part to help animals and the planet. Here's a list of some other books/resources that have helped me immensely along the way, for anyone else who might be considering the transition:


Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss

The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure

Oh She Glows (Food Blog)

Keepin' It Kind (Food Blog)

It takes work and is difficult at first, like most things in life that are worthwhile, but I promise you that it is very, very rewarding once you understand that you have made the commitment to live in a healthy and kind way. :)

You should check out this book if you have some time and a spare $10.

Ignore the vegan part if you like, but the rest is amazing info, and it sounds like you're headed in the direction the book suggests.

The reason you are not hungry and feel better is you are eating foods that provide a net energy gain because they take very little energy to digest. The book has a ton of info on other grains, pseudo-grains, legumes and such that I think you might enjoy adding to your meal plans.

msg me if you want to know more, I've been on the diet for a while now and it's amazing. Esp the morning smoothies.

Yeah - I would say step back a for a week at least. By like 20%. Just my two cents but doing that now will be loads of prevention against the potential of a more serious injury if you keep hammering away.

You might also consider following a base building plan that would work out a more conservative build. Faster Road Racing by Pfitzinger has good ones that many here have followed. At the very least I've personally been best served by adhering closely to the 10% rule up to a certain point - letting the mileage/intensity settle, and build a little more.

Something else to consider: How the body adapts to increased load is a bit tricky. There are periods where neuromuscular development is at hand (4-6 weeks if I remember) before muscle fiber strength really starts to pick up. Many injuries will become severe in a load increase (which could entail either time, distance or intensity) in the 4-8 week time frame. Because the neuromuscular development surpasses what the muscle strength can support if you push too much. I.E. - tendinopathies are often the result of a muscle weakness or imbalance that puts load on the tendon(s) where that muscle should have absorbed the stress.

I love this book by Jay Dicharry if nothing else the first few chapters really give you an idea of HOW the body adapts to increased load and that in of itself can help you from getting injured and not being able to run.

But I'm probably older than you, and I'm not a medical professional or a certified coach. This is just info I've picked up after breaking myself down ignoring all conventional wisdom and just being genuinely curious about exercise physiology. So grain of salt et al.

You'll find that this sub is extremely supportive - no berating or humiliating here at all, just encouragement and sometimes tough love.

Others have said this, but it can't be stressed enough that food should be your #1 priority. What you're doing in MFP is absolutely the right thing - if you keep eating at a deficit, you will 100% lose weight. (And the fact that you already have a MFP account and have been logging what you're eating shows that you are past the point of "literally no concept of health or weight loss!" You know what to do, the trick is making yourself do it, which is why we're all here, haha.)

Once you get the ball rolling, you can start to add in exercise, but that's not the priority upfront. By all means start walking a little more, but really focus on your calories and don't try to jump immediately into intense workouts - it's not necessary right now.

Ultimately, as everyone will tell you, this needs to be about a complete lifestyle change - you can't think of it as dieting. What helps me is reminding myself what's literally happening in my body when I eat certain foods. I really recommend the book It Starts With Food - regardless of whether you actually want to do a Whole 30 (30 days of eliminating a bunch of foods that tend to give people issues), the book is an excellent overview of how what you eat effects all of the organs in your body, both positively and negatively. Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food is another great choice.

You can do it! Good luck!

> A lot of my uncertainty comes from not understanding the proper risks. No matter how much I research I'm met with a myriad of opposing answers.

When researching this subreddit for specific queries, definitely go with the Google search method versus Reddit's search engine. For example, before I started my first extended fast, I was really curious about electrolyte supplementation. So I put this into Google:

electrolytes site:www.reddit.com/r/fasting

It was still a lot of information to sort through, but the results are vastly superior to whatever method Reddit uses for its search function. Just substitute "electrolytes" for your specific keywords in that search string.

I started out with alternate day / intermittent fasting around two years ago, and I found these books to be really informative at that time:

The Every-Other-Day Diet (Krista Varady)

The Alternate-Day Diet (James Johnson)

The Fast Diet (Michael Mosley)

There's also a free, quick-read eBook about 19:5 eating windows by Bert Herring called The Fast 5 Diet.

For a very complete, comprehensive guides - with an emphasis on the benefits of extended fasting - my top recommendation would be these two books by Dr. Jason Fung, as well as his Intensity Dietary Management blog. He's also a co-host on the Fasting Talk podcast, which thus far has published 20 lengthy but very informative episodes. Because Dr. Fung is directly involved in those resources, they would be your best source of consistent and well-researched information from someone who's considered to be an authority on fasting.

I hope this helps!

Athletic vegan lady here. I love it.

I have been on a long, long journey. In my early 20's I was 5'8" and topping 230, ate like I was a garbage truck. Became pescetarianism for a few years, then switched to a plant-based-diet (though now I would call myself vegan) two years ago.

Started taking fitness serious 6 months ago. Went from unable to run 1/4 mile to easily running 5K. Have noticed major definition where I never had it before, much faster than I ever gained it before.

I also do yoga, pilates, bodyweight, bicycling and have started getting into lifting.

I supplement my diet with vitamins and make sure that I start every day with a super loaded up breakfast (oats or cereal with chia & flax seeds, nut butter, berries, and hemp protein powder).

You should check out the book Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

You can absolutely be healthy, happy, and strong while being vegan.

Definitely not more important, if you are prone to a particular acute ankle injury, have joint laxity issues, etc. but I'd argue it is perhaps equally important.

What was initially described in the OP sounded less like it was actually about an acute deficiency in that area, and more about overall fatigue and weak form leading to a situation in which perhaps an ankle rolls. A lot of trail runners don't seem to think they need to strength train or work on muscle memory exercises much or at all. Ask me how I know 😭

In my case, I had deficiencies all over the damn map and had already addressed ankles a while back with a battery of good exercises. While completing PT for a knee injury, I (thankfully!) had the opportunity to work with some great folks who addressed my knee issue with core hip, and glute strengthening amongst other things. I have found that as a result of this, I feel way stronger and more stable on the trail.

The number one resource I would recommend in this department is Anatomy For Runners by Jay Dicchary. I read it at the recommendation of one of my therapists and it's was pretty engaging and enlightening. I won't get into all the details here, but its worth a look for just about anyone who runs seriously.

Honestly, doing a 20/4 with keto AND paleo is a bit spartan (and almost impractical with a calorie restriction too), and probably not very sustainable for many.

The benefits of keto that I've seen are rapid fat loss, and depending on your weight, it might not be that important. Just by judging from /r/keto, a lot of people doing a long-term keto are around 300 pounds. I'm less than half of that weight…

The benefits of paleo, however, in my experience are well worth it. It's more of a dietary template for optimal health, and since going paleo I've lost 35lb (without exercise, low carb or calorie counting), became much happier and confident, got rid of all my acne, never got bloated or food coma, had super clean poops and boundless energy while being able to sleep well too.

So if you're doing a good job with losing weight just by doing 20/4, keto may not be for you. However, if you have some of the problems that I felt were addressed by going paleo, try it out for 30 days and see how you feel, then slowly reintroduce less-paleo foods like dairy or whatever to see how your body tolerates it. There's a great book that explains the paleo lifestyle and how to do a 30 day elimination program on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Starts-Food-Discover-Whole30-Unexpected/dp/1936608898

Hope that helps~

Kev, we all try different paths to get us to where we want to go. If this works for you that's great, but for me it wouldn't be sustainable long-term. HcG just seems a little scammy to me, however if you're committed to it, I would throw in some vitamin D too. Breaking 500 is a great first step (it is nice to see the numbers drop!). I do worry that you're not getting enough real food with this diet.

I started well above where you are now so I know where you're coming from in wanting to get it done with (I still don't like to tell others how bad I got). I've tried most of the diets and fads out there, but what finally turned me around was reading Tim Ferris' 4hr body, Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories, Rob Wolff's Paleo Solution, Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet and Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint. I've culled what works for me from these and have been eating pretty much Paleo/Keto since November. I've dropped over 50lbs since then at about 2000-2200 cals day. I know it's not biggest loser territory, but slow and steady wins the race. Most of all, it's something I can live with long term. So far my only exercise has been walking and some stationary bike.

What made the change easier for me was I found a lifestyle rather than a diet to follow. That's not to say I haven't had the occasional setbacks (god I miss pizza and beer), but I'm getting there and you will too. Best of luck on your quest...

tl/dr - Plan's not for me, don't be afraid to try something else. Knock em dead kid!

I really recommend Matt Fitzgeralds "Racing Weight", there's an entire chapter devoted to discovering your ideal race weight.

TLDR:

1. Find the ideal body fat % that corresponds do athletes in your sport/age/level
   
2. Determine what weight you would be if you were at that %
   
3. Experiment around the fringes of your ideal (e.g. is your performance in races better if you weigh 'X')
   
   The entire book is full of great tips for maintaining a healthy diet for competitive endurance athletes.

Hi there!

This comment's going to get fucking buried, and you'll probably never see it, but I've gotta fucking try anyway.

You've just had a "Harajuku" moment: You're fat, and you'll stay that way unless you do things differently.

So, you need two things.

First, you need real data about yourself.

Second, you need some system in place that can give you immediate results that are compelling enough to keep you committed, which is easy to implement, and which doesn't rely on willpower. Because fuck willpower.

So, the first thing you need to do is take measurements. get a tape measure and measure various parts of your body: I started with biceps, chest, belly, hips (at the widest place) and thighs. Take these measurements every day, because they'll make the bad days better and the good days excellent, no matter how scary it seems at first.

Tracking weight is better than nothing, but be aware that muscle weighs more than fat, so if you go the exercise route, you'll see weight gain when you're actually losing fat and gaining muscle. So I use a tape measure for preference.

Second, you need to keep track of your eating in as lazy of a way as possible: I recommend using your phone to take a picture of every meal before you eat it. Put your hand on the table next to your plate so you have some idea of the scale.

I recommend getting this book, because it covers every aspect of whatever your goals might be- sex, steroids, bodybuilding, fat loss, biochem diet hacking, and a lot more. Like I said- fast results that are compelling and will help you stay on track. I've got over 100 lbs to lose and this has got me well on the way.

Steal this book if you have to. Pirate it- it's available online- if you have no option. Pay the author back later if you have the opportunity. But get it, because my data shows better results from this than anything else I've seen or tried, with less effort, and no willpower.

There's a common assumption here that because some source is a "study", presumably from a professional journal, then what the author(s) conclude from the study is reliable. Nothing could be further from the truth. The medical literature relating to the area of diet & health is an especially fine example of poorly done, designed, or interpreted studies reaching publication. There is also a long history of researchers becoming obsessed with a particular hypothesis, who then become unable to objectively consider alternative explanations, no matter the quality of data supporting the alternatives. It's not an easy read for many, but consider picking up a copy of Good Calories, Bad Calories. It gives a painstakingly thorough rundown of how the conventional view of what we think we know (the conventional view) about diet and health came to be. It's definitely not a story of relentlessly good science rising to the top--quite the opposite.

If you search that title at amazon, you should also see a number of related books also highly worth reading, many more oriented to the lay reader. There are also more focussed works zeroing in on the understanding of cholesterol, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc, that might be of particular interest.

Another book to consider is Denise Minger's Death by Food Pyrimid. Minger, by the way, is a former vegan forced out of that way of eating by resultant health problems.

Bottom line:
No, the current body of data do not support the idea that red meat, or lots of meat in general, is bad for you.

No, saturated fats (primarily animal in origin) are not shown in reliable data to be harmful, but rather appear to be either neutral or beneficial.

No, dietary cholesterol is not harmful. Cholesterol is essential to life and good health, but cholesterol you consume is mostly irrelevant to cholesterol levels as measured in serum.

No, the best data have never shown plant fibers to be essential to health, nor even vegetable intake. In some (many?) people, fiber, and especially insoluble fiber as found in grain husks, actually causes chronic constipation--this happens to me.

There's so much more, but it requires some time and effort to find books such as those, give them a fair reading, and it sure doesn't hurt to look into the primary literature as well. You can then begin to get some idea of what goes into a well-designed and interpreted study, and what sorts of things constitute flaws in studies that render them unreliable for drawing conclusions.

>is an obesity promoting social environment positive body acceptance or something?

Things like having a culture where people bring fattening but tempting junk food to work; environments that discourage walking; attractively packaged and hyper-palatable junk food in the stores, promote obesity.

The former Surgeon-general Dr. David Kessler wrote a book The End of Overeating which discusses how well food is engineered to be hyper-palatable. The food companies do well when people can't stop eating their products.

Also Marion Nestle, professor of public health, talks about this; how American agriculture produced a surplus of calories and the food companies had to figure out how to get people to eat it all. The pressures of the free market made them very clever at this.

The obesity epidemic is very damaging to people's health and very expensive.

>consider that for the first time child obesity rates were dropping thanks to Michelle Obama's school programs

That's good to hear.

Start working out. Exercising will make you feel better. Eat better, it will also make you feel better. Get a job, it will force you to meet new people and you get money which is nice.

Read inspiring books. Books are a great insight into different frames of mind. I would suggest http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman-ebook/dp/B003EI2EH2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid= as a good guide and starting point for nutrition and working out. It's more like a variety pack of topics, not meant to be read straight through as a normal book. The author is coincidentally the reason I started looking deeper into stoicism and find this sub now that I think about it.

8% is not too low. Given how far out you are right now, you are 100% correct in focusing on fueling for performance. With the volume you're going to be training, you may still lose more weight (maybe not to the 8% goal, but 10% wouldn't be unreasonable to see happen).

> but now that I am approaching "race weight" I'm finding I lack energy and am starting to get sick easily.

This is worrisome and obviously indicative of some problem. While it may be due to consuming too few Calories in general (perhaps you have significantly increased your activity level throughout the day?), it could also be due to failure to consume enough of some nutrient. If you log your meals, go back through and see if you're getting enough of everything. If you don't, you could try tracking for a while and see if you can figure out where you're lacking. Of course the best course of action is to take health concerns to your physician, who may very well send you to a nutritionist to help come up with a plan.

I'd also recommend giving this book a read. It's a very good source for understanding weight management in the realm of endurance athletics and does a pretty good job of giving detail without being inaccessible to people without science backgrounds.

Yeah there's plenty. None are going to work as well as going to the gym and lifting heavy shit and putting it back down though.

I was using this routine when I was recovering from back surgery and getting myself ready to get back in the gym. Here it is. BTW this is customizable and you can create your days as you wish. I was given three different work outs but I used a combination of them to make something that worked best for me. You might have to look some of these up, but trust me they work. I lost ~12lbs of fat with this and after that I gained ~20 lbs muscle. I'm over it though, and I totally prefer to lift heavy shit, because that's what makes your muscles big.

Workout A

• Body-weight Bulgarian split squat 3x10-12, 1 min rest
  
• Pushup 3x12-15, 1 min rest
  
• Hip Raise 3x12-15 1 min rest
  
• Side Plank 3x30sec, 30 sec rest
  
• Floor Y-T-I Raises, 3x10, 30 sec rest (first set Y, second T, third I)
  
  Workout B
  
  
• Iso-explosive jump squat, 4x6-8, 1 min rest
  
• Iso-explosive pushup 3x6-8, 1 min rest
  
• Single-leg hip raise 3x12-15, 1 min rest
  
• Inverted Shoulder press 3x10-12, 1 min rest
  
• Prone Cobra, 2x1min, 1 min Rest
  
  Workout C
  
  
• Jumping jacks 2-5x30 secs, 0 rest
  
• Prisoner squat 2-5x20, 0 rest
  
• Close-hands pushup 2-5x20, 0 rest
  
• walking lunge 2-5x12, 0 rest
  
• mountain climber 2-5x10, 0 rest
  
• inverted hamstring 2-5x8 0 rest
  
• t-pushup 2-5x8, 0 rest
  
• Run in place 2-5x30sec, 0 rest
  
  Notes: The point here is to gain weight. I don't feel like I have the authority to change what was written in the book, so I'll just add this appendix. IMO workouts A and B are the most useful. The third says to start at 2 sets and work your way up to 5, IMO that's for weight loss and/or endurance training. You want something concise and heavy. Substitute everything for the hardest way you can do them. My routine was like this:
  
  
• Iso-explosive prisoner squat 3x8 - This means a prisoner squat, but you hold the bottom for 5 seconds, activating all muscle fibers, then all of a sudden EXPLODE up and jump as high as you can off your HEELS (using your toes will use your calves which isn't what we want here)
  
  
• Iso-explosive swiss ball push ups 3x8 - There's a lot of progression here. I started with regular pushups, moved to push ups with my feet raised on a solid platform (chair, table), to those same push ups with the iso-explosive element added, and finally started using a swiss ball which makes the hold a lot harder and hits your core in a beautiful way.
  
  
• Iso-explosive single-leg swiss ball hip raises 3x8-12 - self explanatory
  
  
• Swiss ball side planks 2x30 - This was the only way I could figure out to target my obliques really at home. I would dip my hip down and lift it, so it's not a static hold, but there are actual repetitions.
  
  
• Floor Y-T-I raises 3x10, first y then t then i, this is all about form and explosiveness. Don't let your arms rest on the ground and hold for 5 seconds at the bottom exploding up. Try to go really far up, keep your thumbs pointed at the sky, and let them down slowly.
  
  
• Inverted shoulder press 3x8. Again, use the same progress as you would with push ups. I'd do these wide grip on days that I'm doing my push ups narrow grip, and alternate with the push ups.
  
  My final note is that form is key in all of these. You want to make it hard, you want to flex the muscles you're working. You want to make a low set/rep count mean something. I kept the reps low because I wanted to get stronger. You and I aren't the same, I've been training since I was a kid, one way or another. You might need more core work than I do. Swiss planks may very well be out of the question for you, and you might want to incorporate the prone cobra more often than I. The main idea is to make it hard. Every work out try to make it harder in some way.
  
  Source: http://www.amazon.com/Mens-Health-Big-Book-Exercises/dp/1605295507 <- I own this book and these workouts are listed in the back.

[Health And Fitness: Running] The BibRave Podcast | Episode 27: Weirdest. Half Marathon. Ever

SFW

iTunes

Episode Summary
In Episode 27, Tim and Julia chat about a recent track Half Marathon they both ran. Yup - 52.5 laps, in the rain and cold, and it was awesome (at least Tim thought so. Julia however...).

Then they move to their second favorite subject, food! Tim and Julia talk about foods they are willing to spend more money on for quality, some of the differences between high/low quality foods, and they close with a bunch of useful takeaways on how they shop, plan their meals, and set themselves up to make good decisions. As often as possible... 😇

Episode Show Notes:

• The Bill Aronson Track Half (and the BATH reviews on BibRave)
  

• Run Oregon's BATH report
  
• Tim's 3rd place finish at the 20176 BATH
  
• Racing Weight
  
• Omnivore's Dilemma (not specifically discussed, but very relevant)
  
  Podcast Summary
  The BibRave Podcast is a show about all things running and racing! We cover a random assortment of topics, (almost) all of which relate in some way to running, runners, health, fitness, nutrition, races, and GEAR! If you like what you hear, please subscribe in iTunes and tell your runner buddies about us. Thanks for listening!
  
  Twitter //
  Instagram //
  Facebook

Sure! When you look at the ingredients, the first few should be fairly recognizable but as you go on, there may be words you're unfamiliar with. Just because your don't recognize a word doesn't mean it's necessarily bad- that not scientific at all. But if you see any of these 56 names for sugar now you'll be able to spot the hidden sugars. Other ways that sugars are often hidden in processed foods is by researching HOW some of the foods we are used to are made. Bacon, for example, is often cured in sugar. So it may seem like a sugar free option but usually, there's some hidden sugar in there. Same with deli meat. And hot dogs. There's a documentary called The Sugar Film (I think?) and they said that roughly 80% of grocery store items have added sugars. If you take the list I linked to and start looking through the stuff on the shelves, it's truly appalling at how many items have sugar by another name.

The World Health Organization says that healthy adults should get no more than 10% of their daily calories from sugar. That's less than 200 calories from sugar for most people. When you factor in all the hidden sugars in processed foods, that doesn't leave much at all for dessert. Linky The WHO also emphatically states that cutting that in half is even better.

The fittest people I know don't eat processed foods. It requires a good deal of planning ahead, food prep, etc. But it is possible to have a truly sugar free diet with careful shopping.

[It Starts With Food](It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways https://www.amazon.com/dp/1628600543/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_gHLPyb2QT23XV) is my go to for an introduction to basic nutrition. I can't recommend it enough.

Hey Fuzzy. One of the biggest suggestions I have for you is figuring out specifically what is going on inside of you that seems to be causing these mood changes.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605294578

This book is pretty bomb.com, and chock full of the biology that comes into play when eating and dieting. Your mood is getting shitty and irritable because you're getting "intense food cravings for food you can't have," you say? You're going through withdrawal symptoms. Processed food, fried fatty foods, artificial sugars: these all effectively hijack your brain's neurochemistry and make it run wild.

Artificial sugars activate the same neural reward centers that cocaine activates. Eating these foods feels good, and makes us feel good, and does so because, not so very long ago, fats and sugars and salts were all scarce, and so our brain rewarded our bodies with feel good juju so as to motivate us to get more. Pack in the calories during times of feast and plenty so as to survive times of famine. But times have changed, and if you're looking for diet advice, now we're fresh out of famine.

As far as waiting till you're angry to go to the gym? Fuck that noise. Build it into your routine so as to mitigate feeling angry in the first place. Endorphins are a hell of a drug, and are natural pick me ups.

As far as cravings go? Eat more fruits. Salt your meats till you stop craving the shit you crave but can't eat. Lots and lots of water. Then more water, with a willpower chaser. As tough as this is, living a life full of self hate and pity is much, much tougher.

You're asking for help, and that's an awesome step. Know you're not alone, and you're doing your best to progress. Be kind to yourself; don't beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon, but be mindful of it, pick yourself up, and get yourself back on said wagon. Don't give up. Your life is worth the effort.

I haven't read the book but have listened to a couple of talks given by the authors and it sounds like it would be a good read for you. I did enjoy what the authors had to say. They were on Livin La Vida Low Carb. podcast, you might want to check that out as well. Good luck! You are in the right spot!

Cool. Focus on ramping up your miles per week, you really should be higher than 20 right now for a Oct marathon. You have to watch out too, ramping up mileage too quickly can cause injury, which is what happened to me on my first go. Every other workout you're doing is fine, but when it comes to marathons it's all about the mpw.

As for 3:45 - so that's 8:34 pace. On your long runs start doing race pace tempo work. If you're doing 15-18 miles, do a 3 mile warmup at a slow pace, do 10-13 miles at 8:30 pace non-stop and then do a cool down to wrap up your milage. You want to get to the point that when you start your marathon at 8:30 pace you're so comfortable it feels like you're dragging, but at mile 20 trust me you'll be in a whole new world.

Nutrition-wise, you have to experiment on your long runs. Find what works for you and change nothing on race day. For general nutrition I follow this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Weight-Lean-Performance-Series/dp/1934030996

good luck!

Does your nutritionist specialize in athletic nutrition and/or clients who are struggling with disordered eating? If not, I strongly recommend finding one who has significant experience with both. Endurance athletes have different nutritional needs than the population most nutritionists deal with on a daily basis, and people struggling with disordered eating (which it sounds from the comments like you are and recognize that you are) have different needs in terms of approaching nutrition than people who have a healthy relationship with food. A nutritionist without training or experience in these areas is likely not to have the necessary tools to effectively help you.

Others have already suggested eating more, so I won't waste space repeating what they've said, but if you are having difficulty believing it's okay to eat more, I strongly recommend talking to someone who specializes in treating disordered eating. And if you would like a basis for what healthy eating for a vegan runner might look like, I recommend the No Meat Athlete blog and the book Thrive.

that. sucks.

check out this book.

the title is misleading but the information within is amazing. the authors premise is - rest doesnt solve the problem...it helps the symptom to pass. find the problem and strengthen / retrain to actually fix the problem.

the author is not a quack and his book is filled with great stability and strengthening exercises that will help the reader to run better.

Hey! I know you didn't message back but I was just looking at cookbooks to buy for this next year (this is my next 'get my shit together' year and hopefully it works this time!) and I saw one for vegan athletes by a professional Ironman triathlete and it made me think of you so I thought I'd send you a link:

• His guide
  
• His first cookbook
  
• His second cookbook
  
  I just wanted to let you know there are vegan options for you that fit with your lifestyle, whatever it is, and it would mean a lot for me if you could help me find the perfect resource for you so you can try to make a change. Thanks for reading :)

I know that feeling, our college nutritionist recommended 2000 calories a day no matter how many miles you're running. Legitimately clueless. Unfortunately this seems to be the norm when it comes to distance running and nutrition.

My best experience has been reading about nutrition, and the book I strongly recommend is Matt Fitzgerald's "Racing Weight", which does a great job of outlining almost every aspect of nutrition from base mileage all the way to racing, and really I think the title does it a disservice because it's much more encompassing than just racing. It goes through all of the carb/protein/fat ratio of calories questions, whole grain vs white flour, whole milk vs skim, etc.

I think it's a pretty easy read and it's the best resource I've found for running nutrition. In terms of actual recipes it's pretty light, but it does have example weeks of a nutrition plan. For recipes, Shalane Flanagan's books are pretty popular, run fast eat slow and her other one.

Link to book: Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance (The Racing Weight Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1934030996/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_n3ZWCbD2QCX48

Switching to forefoot striking will be uncomfortable at first if you've been heel striking. It'll require muscles/parts of your leg that weren't used before. They'll strengthen with time. I don't think I'm a better PT than yours but I want to recommend Anatomy for Runners. The book will help you understand biomechanics and your body better so hopefully you can find out why your injuries are occurring. Good luck.

I totally agree with C. Those are great threads.

heres my two cents:

I was 150-155 over the spring, running 30-40mpw and not really eating "clean" or consciously. I was essentially eating whatever came to my plate. Starting in June, i cleaned everything up and started to eat increased fruits / vegetables / non fried foods. Then, I increased my mileage. Suddenly, I started to drop pounds like crazy. I ended the summer around 137-140 after 8 weeks of 50-60 mpw. More importantly, I felt better.

So, my thoughts for you: is there anything you can change in your diet that could help you? Anything you could cut out / cut down on? And, do you think that increasing your mileage / training would help.

Heres a book that might help: Racing Weight

You should check out /r/bodyweightfitness. They can really point you in the right direction for doing some awesome at-home workouts. I also do yoga via Yogaglo. The first two weeks are free and it's $18/month thereafter. It's been great for helping me to keep up my yoga practice while I'm in between studios. I am also doing You Are Your Own Gym with my boyfriend and it's been great!

I'm following YAYOG and functional strength has been gaining faster than I ever had doing free weights. The ability to do it anywhere keeps things interesting by going outside and enjoying fresh air.

I had a similar injury that took a very long time to heal. What I think finally cleared it up was mainly two things:

1. Taking better care of what I put in my body. Started eating a lot more vegetables and taking a vitamin D supplement. Source: Harvard's Nutrition Source
   
   
2. Changing my form and doing the exercises (mostly hip work) to help facilitate that. For form, I shortened my stride, shifted my foot contact from forefoot to more midfoot, and increased my stride frequency a little. Source: Jay Dicharry
   
   Don't worry about drinking milk. Calcium probably isn't the problem. And I'm really not convinced that soft surfaces help much. (If someone has some real data on this, I'd love to see it.) I think it's at least something like 98% running form and having a strong enough musculoskeletal system to handle training.

Found an old face picture a few days ago. The curious case of the slowly appearing jawline. 127lbs down.

Admittedly I've been having a rather rough time not giving into cravings over the last 6 months. I'm not gaining but rather fluctuating the same 5lbs over and over. It's how dieting has always been for me. I get around this weight and the habits that have been an issue my entire life come to the surface.

Thankfully, this time around I've got the information and knowledge to keep me from getting discouraged. I've learned about calories, know exactly what is going on, accept it, and am working towards a point where things will change. I might have to keep doing maintenance for a while and that's okay. I'm going to try to raise my calorie limit for a little while. I feel a bit suffocated by it at the moment so I'm now aiming for 1-1.5lbs a week instead of 2lbs. I think I'm burnt out on eating at 1500cals and need a bit of breathing room for a while.

Mildly irritated at myself though. All evening yesterday I conquered munchies like a boss. Partner went to grab food and asked if I wanted anything... Ended up going way over my calorie limit. Live and learn but it's still bugging me this morning. I've been getting better at managing cravings so I've got that going for me at least. It's helped me realize that I have issues feeling left out if I don't say yes.

Also thank you to a certain redditor for recommending The Beck Diet Solution. It has been invaluable in helping me to realize areas I need to work on. It's the working on them part that's taking so long right now.

Also now that my schedule has slowed down I plan to get back in the gym after work tomorrow. Been 3 months away, going to be so sore.

It'll break before I do. Not hopeless anymore, not by a long shot.

Yes. there is a book (link below) called "It's starts with food." It's basically a hardcore Paleo diet. You don't necessarily need to read the book. But it does a pretty good job explaining how and why it works. And how your body (and mind) respond to what you put in it. I found that informative, helpful and motivating. YMMV

https://www.amazon.com/Starts-Food-Discover-Whole30-Unexpected/dp/1628600543

The biggest challenge is having the right foods available all the time. I just dedicated my Sunday afternoons to shopping, prepping and cooking food to have for the week.

Lets see.

For a start, guy needs to look great for his job as fitness director. Big red flag that you cannot overlook.

Runs a couple of websites selling shredding programs, etc and wrote a book.

Guy has decent musculature and you could easily believe he is natty.

However, guy never quite lost the obvious gyno he had when he wrote his book, as it is still visible at times.

Guy also manages to deflect nicely using an innocent steroid post like a good fake-natty does.

Verdict: Guy has juiced in the past and likely takes TRT now.

Cardio X and Plyo X are easy mode compared to Insanity. If you thought you were good at Plyo or thought it was high impact Insanity will give you a harsh reality check.

It is a real good work program but you can easily injure yourself if you don't stretch properly, work past your limit, or have bad joints. I had started doing it to add some variety to the P90X routine (third cycle around it gets a bit dull) and I was not a fan of Plyo X or Kenpo X, and wanted to trade out Stretch X. The exercises are only 20 ~ 30 minutes long but good lord you will be on the floor in a pool of your own sweat 15 minutes in.

As for diet, I never really paid much attention to the nutrition suggestions in the books, in either program, and just upped the amount of protein I took in with eggs, chicken, beans, and peanut butter. I also had a good amount of pre and post workout supplements, found at any store, to go along with my whey protein and creatine.

Now I do P90X, 10 minute trainer Abs (in place of Ab ripper X), and 50 ~ 75 35lbs kettlebell swings as a daily routine.

You should also checkout The 4-Hour Body by Tim Farriss. It has some good ideas to aid in improving your diet and general fitness. It seems kind of goofy or gimmicky but I was actually quite surprised.

I think that reading The Beck Diet Solution might really help you. I got it out of the library but am seriously considering buying a copy.

It sounds like you've been self medicating your depression with food for a long time and have come to think of this as being the most effective treatment. But really, proper nutrition and exercise is better. Didn't you feel less shitty when you were working out and eating right?

> How do I stay motivated?

If you could find a definitive answer to that, then there would be no diet industry. Everyone is different. Some things I've found that help:

• Reading and posting on loseit. This is a wonderful community.
  
• Writing out my reasons for losing weight and reading them regularly
  
• I have a spreadsheet which converts my weight into pounds and kilos, calculates my BMI daily, and calculates other things like my percentage original body weight and stuff. But the most motivating column, for some reason, is days on plan. It's been 73 days since I started this journey.
  
  >How do I keep my mind from focusing on my failures?
  
  Every time you have a negative thought, fight back with a positive one. Here's an example from an anonymous dieter (cough):
  
  Bad thought: "I ate everything in sight this weekend, and I binged twice last week. This is the beginning of the end..."
  
  Countering thought: " I didn't drink at all, like I decided. And I'm already planning how I'm going to get back on track! It's so great that I can get up again when I fall down."

I started at 425lbs in July 2017. I am now sitting at 260lbs. My first 100lbs came off in 7 months of keto (no fasting at all). I took my foot off the gas pedal when we had a baby in June of 2018 but I'm getting back in gear now. You can absolutely do this but you need to take it easy to start. This is only going to work if you are willing to change the way that you eat forever.

I read Dr. Fung's The Obesity Code in the beginning and it helped me to understand why I was so damn hungry all the time before I went low carb. My advice to you would be to start with keto and just eat bacon and eggs (or some other super low carb food that you like) until you're not hungry anymore.

Once you get your body used to burning fat instead of glucose, you will feel like a bear in hibernation, living off your stored energy supply.

Here are a couple of helpful links. Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions at all.

https://idmprogram.com/blog/

https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187

For better or worse I've become sort of a follower of Pete Pfitzinger. His book Faster Road Racing has become my go to resource for all things training. His break down of nutrition is only 1 chapter but I found it very helpful when I transitioned off of a Keto diet and into fueling my running. It also explains each type of run. The reason for each type of run. The proper paces and goals for each. I use the Half Marathon training plan as my daily schedule. Following this plan and the information in the book I've gone from a 2:20:xx half in May, to a 2:09:xx in July to progression runs under 2:00:xx a few weeks ago. I'm hoping to go sub 1:55:xx in 3 weeks but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

There are also some other books that come highly recommended on the nutrition front. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald comes to mind first along with all of it's follow up cook books and web sites. I don't buy into all of his ideas but a lot of people do and some of it is really pretty sound advice.

>Will I Ever Qualify For Boston?

It's 100% up to you! This may sound a little controversial, but I think almost all healthy persons can BQ if they really want to. It's all about priorities! How bad do you want it? What is important for you?

>Is there anyone hear who has gone from a 4:30+ hour marathon to a 3:30ish marathon?

Not exactly, but I went from 4.35 to 3.55 in 1 year. This year my goal is sub 3.30, and I am pretty sure I will make it if I avoid serious injuries.

Overall I think you are running too few miles. What if you gradually build up your weekly milage to your previous peak at 50 miles? What if you run 6 times a week instead of 4-5? What if you don't drop your weekly milage when you don't have a race coming up soon?

If you decide to increase your weekly milage you will have to slow down, and drop some tempo runs. To be honest, I don't think you need many tempo runs to hit 3.30. You can add them after you have increased your milage and got used to it.

Also, you will need to sort out your injury. You might need some rest and possibly some other running shoes?

Another question is weight? Are you at your optimal racing weight? If no, then I recommend Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance by Matt Fitzgerald.

To have fun while learning, try The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. I also like Prescription for Nutritional Healing for a reference.

I prefer to see studies backing claims. Maybe not everything below is relevant, but here are some places I like to read online, too: Examine.com, Stronger By Science (mostly strength training studies), Strength Sensei (Charles Poliquin is an Olympic strength coach and knowledgable in nutrition), Suppversity, ss.fitness

My advice is to buy and digest Racing Weight. And also cut out/down on the refined sugar.

I started off by calorie counting and creating a small daily deficit. However as I also started eating the best I could I lost too much weight. So instead bought, read, and followed the advice from that book. I eat a lot more (high quality foods), but I'm not putting on weight and I'm stronger.

Are you doing HIIT on the turbo? I found I lost a lot of weight when I dropped my volume and focused on the turbo during the week. I've also introduced double-days as I continue to build volume. Some times these are both on the turbo. Other times I'll go out on the road for an hour or two of endurance after a vO2 Max workout in the morning.

> The other major advantage is that your metabolism is fired up twice. Following a workout, the body continues to burn fat – the harder the workout, the longer the burn. So it makes sense if both workouts are high quality, the fat burn is going to be greater than one session where half is quality and the rest is substandard.

To get an idea of the kind of workout I do during the week it's probably easiest to look at my Strava profile. Usually Tuesday and Thursday are a roughly hour long HARD turbo session. Occasionally I do two sessions a day. Weekend one endurance ride of 4-5hrs and a short recovery ride Sunday.

At the start of the year I was 57-58kg and I'm now 54-55kgg depending on what time of the day it is ;-).

A friend of mine has also written a few guest posts on my website about nutrition that might interest you.

I ordered this book on someone's recommendation (still in mail, so can't comment on how good it is): The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises. Now I know you're probably thinking the same thing I was thinking - it's by men's health mag so is it any good or is it just a way to sell the magazine? I trust the person who recommended this to me and have seen him go from being skinny-but-unfit to very-fit doing mostly bodyweight exercises and said that this good is good. I am at a point where I need to look up good exercises to design my own workout, so it was the one he recommended to me.



> though some diet stuff wouldn't hurt

I haven't read it yet, but Good Calories, Bad Calories sounds like a good one to begin with. I'm definitely going to read that soon.

Make your own snack bars! This is from the Thrive Diet book.

Chocolate Blueberry Energy Bars

High in antioxidants and flavonoids, these bars help reduce free radical damage in the body and improve cellular recovery.

1 cup fresh or soaked dried dates

1/4 cup almonds

1/4 cup blueberries

1/4 cup roasted carob powder (or cacao to make 100% raw)

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

1/4 cup hemp protein

1/4 cup unhulled sesame seeds

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp lemon zest

Sea salt to taste

1/2 cup sprouted or cooked buckwheat (optional)

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

In a food processor, process all ingredients except the buckwheat and blueberries. Knead buckwheat and berries into mixture by hand. Roll them into balls and let 'em dry. That should make about 12 of them.

In THAT case, I change my book recommendation! Read this one: https://www.amazon.com/Beck-Diet-Solution-Train-Person/dp/0848732758

It has the power to change your life. I know, I know, it is BRIGHT pink and the cover looks so hokey and the title is ridiculous. But it's written by the daughter of the founder of CBT and it is brilliant. Everybody I've recommended it to has told me "it is like she was reading my mind. Why didn't I get this sooner?"

I am a dietitian and a good 40% of my whole practice is guiding people through that book due to popular demand

I eat a minimum of 135Grams of Protein a day from lean meats, I do not take any protein powders since I am lactose intolerant, I also do not take any type of supplements I just eat clean 100% Paleo, I take in about 120-130Grams of fat from healthy sources like Grassfed Beef, pasture pork, free range chicken and coconut oil & Nuts, I eat around 2400-2600 Calories a day, here is a book I recommend pretty much what I follow plus I CrossFit http://www.amazon.com/It-Starts-Food-Discover-Unexpected/dp/1936608898

Here are some that I enjoyed. However, it's difficult to make a specific recommendation without knowing what you're specifically trying to learn. These are all quite good though.

Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance

Faster, Higher, Stronger: How Sports Science Is Creating a New Generation of Superathletes--and What We Can Learn from Them

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Their chip is only able to do certain things, and from what I gather they prioritize ancestral information over other types of information. In other words I don't believe you will end up with all possible types of information about yourself (see below).

But when my grandfather sent his test in, the website linked us up as grandfather / grandson as soon as it analyzed the two of us. In other words I think his data was up for a day before they did got around to comparing his data with mine. I guess they have to just constantly make comparisons when new people get results. I'm sure the same thing will happen with my mom and grandmother, when they do send theirs in.

Here is an example of something I was hoping to find out, but their chip doesn't have it. Amylase has to do with how well a person can handle starches versus simple glucose sugars. More amylase copies means you can handle starches better. Less amylase copies means you can handle simple glucose better. I guess I should say allegedly, since I don't really know I just read it in a book.

https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/16254/

Here is the book where I read about amylase:

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-Interests-ebook/dp/B00HFKX24Y

While I don't know of any vegan Crossfitters in the games this year, here is a blog post by a CrossFit coach who was challenged to go vegan.

There are also plenty of examples of top level vegan athletes in a lot of other sports. Great Vegan Athletes I think that as CrossFit grows, we'll start to see more vegan athletes performing at higher levels.

If you are thinking about going vegan and need some advice, check out Thrive by Ironman athlete Brendan Brazier. It's the best source I've come across for how to eat a healthy veg*n diet as an athlete.

Also, Ben Greenfield recently had vegan UFC fighter James Wilks on his podcast. You might find it interesting.

And definitely read THIS

There's a pretty good book by men's fitness that is great for beginners and advanced alike. My ex is a personal trainer and she turned me on to it. The only thing left from that relationship I didn't burn from my mind. Gentlemen: Big Book of Exercises And
For the ladies...

>A disservice in terms of loss of muscle? Risk of injury? Reducing performance?

Any or all of the above, I would guess. For balancing weight loss and training, I found Matt Fitzgerald's book Racing Weight. In particular, I found this section useful:

>Endurance athletes are accustomed to dividing the year into training phases. The central phase is the performance-focused training cycle, which starts when the athlete begins to seriously ramp up for a race or series of races and ends when this race or series is completed. The offseason is a period of relative rest between performance-focused training cycles. The preseason is a period of general preparation for the start of the next training cycle. In most endurance sports this is a period of heightened focus on strength development. Among cyclists and mountain bikers it is often also a period of aggressive weight dropping. For example, Jeremiah Bishop, winner of multiple national championships in mountain biking, maintains a daily energy deficit of 200 to 400 calories to drop weight before the start of a new racing season. He tries to keep his off-season weight gain to no more than 5–7 pounds because it takes a lot of work to get back to his racing weight, and that time would be better spent on quality training.
>
>Because training and diet are synergistic, an endurance athlete’s diet should have phases that match these three training phases. Within the training cycle the diet needs to support optimal training performance and facilitate the loss of excess body fat. In the off-season the athlete’s dietary standards can be relaxed a bit, at least for the first two weeks. And during the preseason, or quick start period, the athlete eats to promote fat loss first and to support his or her training second.
>
>Some endurance athletes will find that they cycle through these three phases once a year. An example is a cyclist who races from late spring through fall, takes a break for the holidays, and then starts preseason training after the New Year. Other athletes complete two cycles of all three phases. An example of this type is a runner who does a marathon in the spring and another in the fall with off-season breaks after each. Still others pack a trio of three-phase cycles into the year. An example of this type is a multidiscipline cyclist who does mostly road races in the summer, mountain bike events in the fall, and cyclocross competitions in the winter.

As well:

>In a quick start, your daily calorie deficit needs to be large enough to promote fairly rapid loss of excess body fat, yet not so large that you lack sufficient energy to perform well in your workouts. The calorie deficit “sweet spot” is 300 to 500 calories per day.

On a more meta level, I've got some good book recommendations that talk about the history of how we got to where we're at as a country in terms of creating a nutritionist infrastructure pushing SAD on everyone:

• Death By Food Pyramid by Denise Minger
  
• Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get It Back by Ann Vileisis
  
• The Calorie Myth: How to Eat More, Exercise Less, Lose Weight, and Live Better by Jonathan Bailor
  
  I've dug into this topic pretty deeply and have run across lots more good stuff. These three stand out in my mind as doing the best job of telling a good demythologized backstory of how we got to where we're at in terms of what American establishment forces push about food and diet.
  
  I hope this helps in your journey.

You may be interested in checking out the 4-hour Body (link to kindle edition, the print edition of this book is pretty large) by Tim Ferriss, the diet presented by him is more-or-less a keto based diet and the book provides a wealth of excellent information.

Per Mens health big book of exercises by Adam Campbell, " lifting of the heels is a sign off tight hips.... To remedy the problem perform a squat, find the moment in the motion where heels start to lift but still on ground, and hold that position. Do two sets of these. " Also in the book it shows a variation of the squat being perform on your toes, states that it engages your quads more than a normal squat.

Link for the book. Really good read and great guide to your muscles.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605295507?ie=UTF8&at=&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links

citeste cartea asta, e scrisa de un doctor super smecher si iti explica aproape tot legat de cum sa mananci, ce sa mananci, cand sa mananci, de ce unii oameni se ingrasa si altii nu, ce efect au diverse alimente asupra corpului, de ce a numara caloriile e o aiureală pe termen lung, etc.

e mult mai ok sa iti iei sfaturile de la un doctor nefrolog care lucreaza zi de zi cu persoane diabetice si obeze pe care le ajuta sa slabeasca decat vreun 'nutritionist' sau cine stie ce persoana la intamplare.

asta daca vrei slabit. pentru culturism si a pune masa si muschi si etc, un trainer la sala probabil e mai potrivit.

Through all of this weight loss I have been following Tim Ferriss' book, the 4-Hour Body. It has helped me tremendously and I would strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a nice diet that won't leave you starving day after day. The best diet for me I have found by far.

Personally, I'd work on over-unders, in your case going uphill; for a given work interval, stand up for 1-2 minutes bringing your HR/Power/RPE above threshold, then back down into the saddle and to tempo or sub threshold for 1-2 minutes (to start I would recommend doubling your work time to find your "recovery" time). Repeat this 3-4 times, then rest for an equal amount of time going very very easy, ie zone 1-2. Repeat. This mixed in with some steadier efforts. If you haven't read Friel that's a good place to start. Racing Weight and the Quick Start Guide help me lose weight. Depending on the type of racing you're doing, you may not have to lose all that much more weight. I race in NYC (virtually flat, no hill more than 40m) and I race fine at 5'10" and 165-170 lbs. Hope this helps.

I don't really think the American Heart Association has much credibility in the paleo community, and rightly so, after all they are an organization that has been pushing dietary recommendations such as:

• eat plenty of whole grains
  
• limit red meat
  
• eat plenty of low-fat dairy products
  
  For a more paleo take on cholesterol I highly recommend the book "Cholesterol Clarity" by Jimmy Moore. The book suggests:
  
• that total cholesterol is a meaningless value
  
• looking at Triglyceride/HDL ratio, around 1 is good, high values are bad
  
• that the size of LDL particles are important: large fluffy are good, small dense particles are bad. He recommends testing for the amount of small LDL-P. A ratio of small LDL-P/total LDL-P <20% is healthy.

This is a good comment. I would also add that Tim Ferris has a chapter devoted to weightlifting advice for women that's really good.

It's in this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X

Also OP might like this article.

http://bonytobombshell.com/bombshell-aesthetics-building-attractive-female-body-imaginable/

It's important for women to be realistic with the body type they want to achieve.

Well done! I was in the same situation. I kind of hit a plateau after being vegetarian for 4 years. Last summer I became vegan and this summer I switched to a mostly raw vegan diet after reading Thrive by a triathlete named Brendan Brazier. I highly recommend his books they completely changed my relationship with food. The weight just fell off combined with running and strength training. Also check out his meal replacement shake called Vega. It has all of the essential nutrients an active vegan needs to maintain optimum health. I have it in my fruit smoothie every morning. Since It is a bit pricey I have half a serving and add a full serving of less expensive raw hemp protein.

http://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Nutrition-Optimal-Performance-Sports/dp/0738212547/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312161571&sr=8-1

)

Yeah, that's the problem with convincing a skeptic with blood results. They look bad when viewed through traditional eyes.

OP, it's great you have this deal going with your mother, but over the next 6 months you have to educate her on what good blood results actually look like. High total cholesterol isn't a bad thing (in fact that number is meaningless) but if she thinks it's too high and dangerous then you haven't really "won".

I recommend Jimmy Moore's Cholesterol Clarity to help.

http://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Clarity-What-Wrong-Numbers/dp/1936608383/

My first suggestion is do not neglect your lower body. Besides the obvious reason of having total body fitness, the legs and core have large muscles which means more calories needed for fuel (which in turn means less fat over your whole body, leading to a more overall "toned" look).

As already mentioned by the other commenter, exrx.net has a great listing of exercises. I am also a fan of Big Book Of Exercises for quick ideas (it also spells out some nice routines if you prefer to be told what specifically to do).

Thanks for sharing your feelings. Not many men are honest about their body issues. If you want to get back into shape, consider buying and reading the 4 hour body. Easy, fast.

Two resources that you may find helpful:

(1) [The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person] (http://www.amazon.com/Beck-Diet-Solution-Train-Person/dp/0848732758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453687296&sr=1-1&keywords=judith+beck) I don't resonate with the word THIN in the subtitle, but having gone through most of the book - it does have helpful ways to shift your thinking, etc.

(2) Primal Potential podcast Elizabeth Benton's podcast has LOTS of info on emotional eating, self-sabotage, etc. I like that she is someone who once weighed 300+ and took off the weight.

In that case, I recommend reading one of Matt Fitzgerald's books. [Racing Weight]http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Weight-Lean-Performance-Series/dp/1934030996) and New Rules both do a good job of covering nutrition and diet for endurance athletes. I prefer New Rules, as it is a bit better written.

As far as training goes, Daniels' Running Formula is a classic. It lays out a solid plan for improving your 5k (and other distance) performance.

I was skeptical when I first heard about fasting and even intermittent fasting. I thought that the main benefit was discipline from the restriction and had not idea about the hormonal effects that make it successful. Someone recommended I read The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist in Canada who runs a practice that treats obese diabetics through fasting.

In the book, he provides a breakdown of every aspect of how fasting works, with cited studies and also discusses why fasting produces better results for his patients than the current standard nutritional advice.

https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187

While reading the whole book would answer all your questions about safety and optimal nutrition while fasting, there is a summarized version available on Blinkist that you can read if you sign up for a free trial (I don’t get any referral rewards but it’s an option).

https://www.blinkist.com/en/books/the-obesity-code-en

He also wrote this extended guide, which goes over fasting in detail (totally free with no trial):

https://www.dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting

Ha - no problem! I think there's a lot of misconceptions about the W30... understandable with any "craze," I guess.

I suggest reading the book It Starts With Food written by the W30 creators. It's a ton of really interesting (easy to follow) scientific info about nutrition and how everything affects body functions, and then goes into the details of the program. Better to read the details straight from the horse's mouth than from my quick summary. Good luck!!

There are two good, scientific books that have nothing to do with cavemen and everything to do with the science of how our bodies work that are worth reading. If she doesn't want to read them because its "too hard" or "time consuming" she really doesn't care that much about her health and its not worth pushing the issue. Sounds harsh, but its true. If she really wants to be healthy and wants to take the time to change, she should look at these resources.

Why We Get Fat

The End of Overeating

*Deleted my name at the end of this comment. I signed it like an email, and don't know why!

I highly recommend the book "It starts with food". It really give some great insight as to why we shouldnt eat certain foods and it changed the way I view food forever. It will definitely get you going in the right direction and from there I'm sure others will give you other resources.

First off, I would highly recommend the Tim Ferris book "Four Hour Body"

http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Body-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1346184779&sr=8-1

It's huge and worth every penny. His take on the Paleo lifestyle is a "slow-carb diet" kind of modification. It is not strict Paleo, but he gives you guidelines in the book. His recommendation is for a splurge day once a week. I did this last year and shed about 30 lbs. A friend of mine did it and lost about 100 lbs! Secondly, fasting is a good thing done intermittently. Fasting for up to 48 hours has been shown to increase the natural release of HGH.

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/50/1/96.full

Also as a healthcare professional (Paramedic) and a medical student, I would advise against the use of Albuterol for your purposes. (That is unless you have asthma. Even then only using it PRN (as needed))

In short, you are on the right path. You just need to make a few tweaks here and there and I think you're set.

My diet, however, is for the exact opposite purpose. I have always had a bear-like frame and have had no trouble with lean gains. It's those pesky "non-lean" gains that have always plagued me so I'm constantly cutting.

I'm assuming you didn't retire due to injury.

Here are some suggestions that are related to what you like:

• A different form of dance than what you were doing. There are hundreds of different types you can take up, many of which are great fun.
  
• Gymnastics. Yes, there are classes for adults. If you don't want a class, you could pick up Convict Conditioning or You Are Your Own Gym.
  
• Capoeira (Example if you've never seen it.)
  
  I know you said you eat well, but cutting out processed foods and sugar for a month or two could make a difference. It's likely you're eating the same as you were when you were more active, which is why you've put on a bit extra. Cutting back slightly will help with that.

I'm a big believer in Matt Fitzgerald's Racing Weight, and as a 5' 7" male his calculator put's my ideal weight at 122.

But the point he makes in his book is that your ideal racing weight is the weight you run fastest at. He suggests recording time trials/race times at different weights to help in finding out what that is. A quick read and highly worth it in my opinion: http://amzn.com/1934030996. From January of this year to ~June I went from 158lb to 130lb following the stuff I read in that book.

As a side note, I'm not sure what you mean when you say burning 1800 calories/day. From the running alone or does that include your base metabolic rate? Even a pretty conservative estimate at 70 kcal/mile puts you at 900 kcal/day from the running alone; add that to a BMR for a sedentary person ~1800 kcal/day puts you at 2700 kcal/day burned.

4 hour body is pretty worth checking out. A lot of really useful information in a pretty condensed form: http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X

Nope, it's not the ingredients or the microwave that are causing the stir. The Whole30 people refer to paleo-ify baked goods as Sex With Your Pants On. I dont think anyone is trying to make you feel unsupported, just trying to point out what might be a flaw in your Whole30 plan so you don't unintentionally sabotage yourself. It's up to you if paleo english muffins are going to work for you, but just understand its not to the letter of the Whole30 program. That does not make it bad, just not necessarily "Whole30". Hope that helps. I also highly recommend reading the book as it goes into greater detail on where the rules come from. It helped me a lot to understand how some rules that seemed arbitrary, weren't so arbitrary after all!

Yes, I put on 30 Kilos after becoming software programmer in 20 years period. The biggest change came in after 2008 after which I gained 20 Kilos. Problem is that our weight creeps on us slowly and stealthily.


I started eating a lot of carbs and sugar because those were the kind of food served freely by software companies I worked at. Pizzas Parties were regular and Coke was always flowing.


In 2010 the company I joined added Candies to my diet. Finally, I reached 95 Kilos and was horrified. It was my tipping point and I decided to do something about it.


In 2014 I got sane. I stopped eating everything that my company gave me free. I would pack lunch & snacks from home. Avoided all Pizzas, Coke, and Candies to the extent of zero tolerance to those foods.


Walked 10000 steps every day for exercise.


In two months between July-2014 & Aug-2014 lost 10 Kilos. Since then has remained sane and stopped binging on food.


Two books helped me immensely during this phase The 4 Hour Body and The Sugar Smart Diet.

The first book helped me in understanding weight loss and exercise. The second book helped in getting ready recipes for success.

I’d guess your biomechanics are off. Give this a read and what you learn. It offers a solid self analysis section that can help point out where you lacking strength, flexibility, and range of motion while providing a suggested means of helping each of those things.


https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Runners-Unlocking-Potential-Prevention/dp/1620871599

True. I've certainly become a more efficient athlete and lifting is really just one aspect of what has gotten me here. It certainly isn't responsible for my speed gains. We all know that comes from lots of quality work and miles. The trick for me is that I spend no more than 30 to 45 minutes each session lifting as opposed to the hours that a bodybuilder spends. I also do core work and stretch in the same sessions. My goals in lifting are that I want to look proportional and to be strong throughout my whole body. Anyway, a year ago:

• my cruising pace was about 8:15/mile and is right at 7:30 now - I've had the goal of BQ'ing for a couple years now and have been trying to be smart about it. I ran a 20:41 5k a week ago, which is the first time I've ever run a 5k purely to see what time I could get. I have A LOT to learn about tactics and pacing for races, but I sure I'll be able to hit 18 minutes once I understand how to run that specific race.
  
  
• bench was ~100 and it's 160 now and I'd say my other % gains have been similar in other areas. I'm happy with those numbers and really don't want to go much higher in an effort to avoid bulk.
  
  
• I was running 4 to 5 days a week averaging probably 25 miles a week and I'm more after today I'll have 43 miles for this week leading into Ragnar next weekend.
  
  
• I'd never thought about flexibility before because I'm naturally loose; however, once I had my first ITBS problem, that changed dramatically and I stretch & foam roll just about every day.
  
  
• My diet, which is certainly a huge part, has essentially stayed the same and admittedly could use some work as it's the weakest aspect of my training. I've read Race Weight by Matt Fitzgerald and it just didn't sink in at all. I really wanted it to, but I'm going to try again once I finish Salazar's Guide to Road Racing.

Strength training anatomy for learning how exercises strengthen certain parts, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for basics on training for aesthetics and strength, and Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle for good diet advice.

BJ Gaddour has a book called Your Body is a Barbell. It's amazing and the workouts are tougher than any I've done with weights.

There's a 28 day workout plan in it so it might be perfect for you!

http://www.amazon.ca/Mens-Health-Your-Body-Barbell/dp/1623363837

OK - a lot to unpack here

>Personally I found it motivating rather than chastising

Do people really need more "motivation" to lose weight? I think that most fat people really do hate their bodies and feel motivated to become lean, but that isn't making anyone any thinner.

>I struggle to lose weight because overeating is my "natural state". Food is enjoyable to me. There's nothing really more to my current weight other than "I overeat by a lot".

IMO there is nothing "natural" about the food that we consume or the way we consume it. If you are overeating, I think it's worthwhile to examine your habits. Are you eating while distracted - at your desk, in the car, while watching TV, standing in front of the fridge, walking around the house? It's amazing how much less I eat if I commit to eating sitting down and completely free of distractions. Are you overconsuming hyperpalatable foods and going out to eat a lot? Do you fail to meal prep or carry healthy snacks, then become ravenous and overeat shitty food?

>I need to take ownership of the fact that I'm fat because I'm ill disciplined in that regard.

I agree with this but I think it's so much more constructive to take ownership of the process rather than your progress. Instead of setting a body-oriented "be lean and sexy" goal, you can set process goals: I will track my macros, I will bring lunch to work every day, I will not exceed 1 beer per week, I will not go out to eat more than X times, I will eat every meal sitting down and free of distractions, etc. The score takes care of itself. The "put down the fork fatty" so-called "motivational" bullshit fails to address any of this. Per Jamie:

>The simplest solution here is a tangible, Van Damme-style hard target of a goal.  By this, I do not mean some sort of silly-ass intra-office weightloss competition- you need something REAL.  Something in which you'll look like an ass if you fail.  You need the fear of failure and a desire for success simultaneously pushing you forward, to ever greater heights.

This isn't helpful. Ultimately the process is what will determine whether or not you lose weight anyway, the solution isn't to just create a shitload of anxiety around your body composition with an arbitrary timeline. Address your bad habits, celebrate the small victories of adherence, and don't get wrapped up in the cycle of self-loathing.

>Do you think this is aimed at people who fall under that umbrella or to people who's totals are shitty because they're fatter than they should be?

There is a spectrum. Do I think that Jamie advocates being a 6' 155 lb DYEL male, no. Do I think this is aimed at someone like me who chooses to compete as an undersized 148 at 21-22% bf rather than maintain at 18-19% and cut to 132, absolutely. Like I said I'm basing some of this off "Prepare for War" which is basically his manifesto on cutting weight for meets.

More generally, I think that focusing on "relative strength" for a weight class can be (and usually is) counterproductive. I think that if people focused on their body composition and performance in a big-picture long-game sort of mentality rather than arbitrary weight class boundaries they might see much more progress. I've seen far too many people spin their wheels for ages because they can't accept that they're just going to be a little chubbier. So they never spend any of their time in a surplus or building muscle, yet they never get truly lean either.

It Starts with Food is a great start. It is written so you can scan the individual sections or read more in depth if you would like. I highly recommend it.

Your lipid numbers mean nothing.
Hell all of them are within the 10-20% of lab variance.

You need more education on the matter.

Watch

• Fat Head
  
• Statin Nation
  
• Dr Peter Attia The Straight Dope on Cholesterol
  
• Dr Bowden The Great Cholesterol Myth
  
  Read These
  
  
• Cholesterol Clarity
  
• The Big Fat Surprise

I haven't read it personally, but this one is pretty popular.

For the 13 years I've been veggie/vegan, I've never had a problem - until I started working out heavily (Crossfit). I'm still having some issues that my meat-eating friends aren't having, however I have now read the Thrive Diet book twice and will be giving that a shot ASAP. I suggest you give it a read before committing.

Other than that, I'm in full support of the vegan lifestyle.

Pick up Racing Weight.

Basically, just improve your diet by eating more good things. By increasing the amount of good foods (fruits, veggies, beans, lean meats/fish etc). you automatically limit the "bad" foods from your diet. Think more about what to add to your diet rather than take away.

You should check out this book. Its practically the bible on weight training IMO.

The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises

It will give you a ton of tips, show you how to make your own workout and gives good sound advice on eating etc. Im currently doing a beach body workout from the book.

Also it will show you body weight workouts as well.

Protein shakes could be good as a meal replacement. However you need to be careful that they dont add too many calories. if your main goal is losing weight you want to adjust your diet to help to do that.

For your workout, may I recommend Your Body is Your Barbell; really great exersizes and workouts for different goals, very little equipment needed. (Not a sponsor ;)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623363837

And you might wanna try intermittent fasting too. It sounds crazy, but not eating for a few days actually feels really good!

> that cute dark haired woman who pulled apart the China Study

That would be Denise Minger. She has an excellent book that is worth a read: http://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-Interests/dp/0984755128

Have you read any of the Thrive Books?
http://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Nutrition-Optimal-Performance-Sports/dp/0738212547/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409777153&sr=1-2&keywords=thrive

Or

http://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Energy-Cookbook-Plant-Based-Recipes/dp/0738217409/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409777153&sr=1-4&keywords=thrive

Super helpful for vegan athletes!

I would recommend The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. While this may not touch on everything that you mentioned, it's quite the interesting read and he explains a lot of the technical sides of how your muscles and proteins work. I have it and have found it quite interesting, though I have not yet read it entirely.

Thrive is a vegan nutrition guide written for athletes. Even though you might not be a vegan (I'm not either) It has some great recipes and ideas for gluten/dairy free diets.

I haven't read it yet but this book is supposed to be a good humorous account of the whole sordid story. Death by Food Pyramid by Denise Minger

Amazon.com links provided:

1 The Slight Edge

2 Mastery

3 The 4-Hour Workweek

4 The Art of Power

5 Thinking, Fast, and Slow

6 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

7 The Power of Now

8 The Power of Habit

9 Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?

10 The 48 Laws of Power

11 Your True Home

12 Ego Is the Enemy

13 The 4 Hour Body

14 The UltraMind Solution

15 The Dip

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-china-study-revisited/

> The China Study was embraced by vegetarians because it seemed to support their beliefs with strong evidence. Minger has shown that that evidence is largely illusory. The issues raised are important and deserve further study by unbiased scientists. At any rate, one thing is clear: the China Study is not sufficient reason to recommend drastic reductions in protein intake, let alone total avoidance of meat and dairy foods.

Also check this one: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-Interests/dp/0984755128

Timothy Ferris wrote a whole chapter on unheard of sleep patterns that deal a lot with naps in the 4-hour body book.
http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X
The chapter I read was about these sleep patterns where you are actually awake for like 22 hours and nap every 2 hours or something for 30 minutes and (not doing the math here, just estimating) and be fully awake and alert. It take about 2 weeks to get into that pattern and he said its only for the real risky "sleep hackers". I wish I could find it online to share.

So the primary purpose of this post was to provide results-based TL;DR recommendations for multiple different broad topics without bogging down the post with exhaustive amplifying information, and to provide links to additional resources should you be curious to learn more.

I've provided you with a book, a video, real-life stats from this methodology put in action, as well as my personal vignette from doing it.

What more hard proof would you like?

That being said, I've been debating on which topic to write my next in-depth article and I think I'll write my next one on nutrition based off the interest / confusion this specific topic has generated.

In the meantime, here is another excellent "keep it simple stupid" article on this topic. While I don't prescribe specifically to the Paleo diet, this covers all the right stuff.

Nerd Fitness: The Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet

The author of that article, Denise Minger, also has a fantastic book Death By Food Pyramid that goes into great depth examining the poor science and shady politics that got us where we are today. It's one of the most readable volumes of its type due to her ability to distill and explain scientific studies in such a conversational style.

Nurse here. Your numbers look great. You may want to read Cholesterol Clarity for some background and reassurance.

If you want to lose fat fast, read this book. It's extreme, but it works. I went from ~12% Body fat to ~8% in about 3 weeks.

http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X

It also gives invaluable other tips, as well. Definitely worth the price.

Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry is a great place to start. This is focused on biomechanics and PT, and includes methods for assessing runner's form and corrective exercises to address issues in a runner's form.

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Runners-Unlocking-Potential-Prevention/dp/1620871599

I would recommend Checking this book out: http://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Nutrition-Optimal-Performance-Sports/dp/0738212547/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415241288&sr=8-2&keywords=Thrive

Although it is vegan, it focuses only on athletic performance and is a great resource.

I also think Vegan For Life, a nutrition guide by an RD is indispensible.

Probably yes. Take into account that the way your body strengthens is mostly a cycle of breaking muscle at the microscopic level and then repairing it. If the needed materials (protein but also carbohydrates) are not available because you are dieting, that is not going to happen.

There is an interesting book on the matter: Racing Weight.

The book Racing Weight, by Matt Fitzgerald specifically recommends taking creatine. It's a very famous book dedicated towards the diet for marathon and distance runners. Creatine is the only supplement he recommends taking.

>After hitting a plateau for about 2 months I’ve decided I’m going to go 5:2! 0 calories 2 days a week (I know I can do the 500cal crutch, but I don’t really feel like I need it) 1,000 calories 5 days a week. I’ll make the fasting days my rest from workout days and just go on long walks or do yoga or something easy like that. Of course I’ll subtract calories burned on workout/eating days, so my end total will be 1,000 calories. What do you guys think?!

1000 cal a day is crash dieting, not really a great plan even if you were doing it 7 days a week. You're hitting the 'CICO as primary' diet plateau, because your metabolic rate has likely dipped down super low to match your intake.

Remember that 3/4 or more of your daily energy expenditure comes from metabolic activity, & very little comes from exercise. Therefore if you compromise your metabolic rate, you will likely hit an unmovable plateau. You're also primed for rapid weight regain when you quit the diet out of plateau frustration (because your BMR is 1000 instead of 1500).

Your body usually tries to lower metabolic rate to match dietary input. Fasting is supposed to help prevent this, but if you've been "eating 1000 calories a day for months" as you said in a comment, and now you're plateauing, this is likely because your BMR is now closer to 1000 instead of 1500

Also the actual 5:2 diet book (The FastDiet) has a couple of protocols, neither of which you are attempting.

The weight loss protocol is 5 days of normal eating (3+ meals a day) without fasting or calorie counting, with 2 non-consecutive days of 500-600 calorie fasting.

The weight maintenance protocol is 6 days of normal eating, 1 day of 500-600 calorie fasting.

My favorite is The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler. He's the former FDA commissioner who went around interviewing the people who influence food trends and sales in the USA to figure out why it is that we collectively have gotten so fat over the past few decades. It goes a lot into hyperpalatable foods, taste engineering, marketing, etc, and does so in a reasoned and diligent manner.

Maybe not "motivating" in a traditional sense, but it was the first book I ever read that made me want to put down the junk food and eat an apple just to stick it to the man. :)

There's an excellent book on the topic. (Note: author wasn't happy with the title the publishers chose). Dr. Kessler's book goes into detail about the billion dollar food industry which seeks to maximize food flavor - through sugar, fat, salt, and crazy crazy chemical combinations allowing more complex flavorings that essentially deaden the American palette to more natural, subtle flavor. How food is made to be textured (in some ways like it's already chewed) so that consumers don't have to work hard to eat it. It's somewhat depressing and an EXCELLENT reason to not eat frankenfoods! Here's his interview on NPR.

It's something called hyperpalatability:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-hyperpalatable-foods-could-turn-you-into-a-food-add-1575144399

Modern engineered food is designed to light up your brain's pleasure centers, and consequently make you crave it. It's a carefully balanced combination of fat, sugar, and salt, which together are extremely addictive. Almost all pizza contains enough sugar to do the job.

Hyperpalatable food lights up pleasure centers just like hard drugs do. There's something called the Yale Food Addiction scale, which measures how addictive a food is, based on this conditioning. Here are the worst of the worst:

Pizza – 4.01

Chocolate – 3.73

Chips – 3.73

Cookies – 3.71

Ice cream – 3.68

French fries – 3.60

Cheeseburgers – 3.50

Soda (sugar-sweetened) – 3.29

Cake – 3.26

Cheese – 3.22

Bacon – 3.03

Fried chicken – 2.97

As you can see, pizza is #1 on that list. If you like pizza, I would strongly recommend that you make it from scratch, will will let you control what's going in there. If you're eating commercial stuff like Pizza Hut or Papa John's, you might as well be doing cocaine.

I struggled with weight most of my life. When I read Kessler's book, it opened my eyes as to how useless discipline was, against what the food industry is doing these days:

https://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605294578

I'm in the same boat - I tell my doctors that I'm probably the fattest person with IBD. The steroids don't help.

I've had great results from following the 4 hour body (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EI2EH2) and bonus points for it being similar to SCD. I'm only able to follow it when not flaring so that's the big downside for me.

I recently read a book called "Racing Weight" found here on Amazon. His other book, The New Rules of Half-Marathon and Marathon Nutrition is also great. He really goes into how to eat to fuel your muscles properly and how weight can affect PRs in endurance sports. Give it a shot!

The food pyramid. I recommend the book Death by Food Pyramid, it gives fascinating account of the how the first food pyramid was originally conceived and how it was tampered with by bureaucrats, politicians and lobbyists.

You might check out the book Cholesterol Clarity: What The HDL Is Wrong With My Numbers? by Jimmy Moore, Eric C. Westman (Author) Dr Westman is the the one who did the original studies for Dr. Atkins at Duke. There are some great interviews with him on youtube.

I definitely have the Kindle version, and I do not have a summary version of the book.

source: I read the hardcover book and then the kindle version a few months later. I don't recall missing anything.

edit: here's the link for the kindle version FYI. The $1.99 version that you probably bought is by Tim Ferris - it says that it's a summary, and the book info says that it is only 22 pages long - perhaps be a little more thorough before purchasing?

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are just wanting to lose weight, bike riding is fine. If you want bigger muscles, then yes, you'll probably want to follow this quote. I don't know a lot about exercising, but this is the book I've been following for about two weeks now as an absolute beginner and I like it so far: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mens-Health-Book-Exercises/dp/1605295507

Actually, its very hard to make someone obese based on calories. Our bodies do an amazing job of regulating calories. Its actually refined carbs. You can actually eat a deficit of calories but if you stick to refined carbs, you'll still gain weight. I suggest reading The Obesity Code, it talks all about this

Subreddits to check out:

/r/Fitness

/r/bodyweightfitness

/r/keto

/r/loseit

My success story:

For the first 2 months, all I ate was fruit, veggies, and sources of protein. I cut out all bread/grain and dairy. I drank nothing but water. This coupled with bodyweight training (pushups, pullups, core, squats) and 30-second sprints made me lose 20 lbs in the first month. In the second month, I learned about Convict Conditioning and You are Your Own Gym. I also recommend SimpleFit if you only have about 15-20 minutes in the day to exercise. What I learned from these programs has helped me shed 20 more lbs. I still loosely follow my original diet (I caved in, I just had to eat bread/grain) by taking in the same amount of macros (protein, carbohydrates, fat).

Which is more important: diet or exercise?:

I would say that diet attributes to about 70 percent of a person's weight loss. Perhaps even more. That's how important diet is.

Good question to ask.

Thrive and Thrive Fitness have more on building muscle on a vegan diet.

More science behind not needing meat is in Eat To Live.

Body weight doesn't tell me my progress. Needing smaller belts does.

Yup. I feel the same. I am fasting too (18~ hours). I work out before Iftar and cycle after, it feels amazing.
I can't give you a scientific explanation, but I recommend to read a book called "The FastDiet" it explains everything related to fasting.

I'm glad some of it worked for you but Tim Ferris is bullshit. He is friends with Ryan Holiday who is the author of "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" (which is also a bullshit book but there Ryan reveals he is a media manipulator).

If you don't believe me, read the 1-star reviews of the book. They release a book and buy paid reviews of it from third world countries and I'm sure most of the 5-star reviews are just that.

I will summarize the four-hour body for people who haven't read it: "I am a really awesome guy and know a bunch of scientists that I am going to name drop here every now and then... none of what I write is backed by anything scientific though because it is all ongoing research yet to be published... you just need to buy a bunch of shit I get commissions from, eat a bunch of chemicals along with complex carbs and do some shitty variations of common exercises really fucking slow... and here is a bonus chapter about how to get bitches"

If you really feel like you need to read this book, get a pirated copy... read it and if it helps you in ANY FUCKING WAY, purchase the book... or just read the one star reviews instead and save yourself time.

I recommend this book. Its geared around "weight loss," but he does a good job of outlining dietary needs. The TL:DR will be: You need to eat more carbs.

A good place to start for him might be the book Cholesterol Clarity by Jimmy Moore.

http://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Clarity-What-Wrong-Numbers/dp/1936608383

I liked Racing Weight which is squarely aimed at people of a "healthy weight" that do have fat to lose. He encourages eating high quality satiating foods (and tracking quality) over calorie counting. I think your best bet would be to treat it similar to weight lifters, don't try and lose fat and train hard at the same time, but do a cycle where you maintain fitness and loose fat and then a cycle where you eat enough but train hard.

On the nutritional side Master You Metabolism and It Starts With Food are both excellent books on the effects of various foods and chemicals on hormone regulation. Both are a little content dense though when it comes the science involved in metabolism and hormone regulation, neither is an easy read.

Also a fan of Becoming a Supple Leopard, though I expect this one is probably a little more widely known and nothing new to most.

You might look into the fast diet as well. It seems that fasting reduces diabetes.

https://thefastdiet.co.uk/

The advice is two days a week, but even one day can be a real good thing.

Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald: Basically how to lose weight to get to your optimal race weight while training. Some good info in here, helped me figure out how to switch from a "diet" to a diet that supports my training.

Buy Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald, it's the best resource out there on nutrition for endurance athletes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C3MFR2O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Not sure what you want a link of but...here? I'll just post some high level stuff instead of getting into the weeds of primary source studies.

Matt Fitzgerald racing weight; https://www.amazon.ca/Racing-Weight-Lean-Peak-Performance/dp/1934030996

DRI of fiber https://www.mayoclinic.org/fiber/art-20043983/in-depth/art-20043983

Guidelines for saturated fat intake: https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/fats/saturated-fats

Cholesterol intake: https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/rda

Or are you looking at fiber in relation to IBD? There's not a lot of 3rd party reports on that and I don't have the time now to dig up a bunch of primary source studies but can grab them if you're curious.

For me Death by Food Pyramid from Denise Minger was a good read.

She gives a good overview about different studies in the food industry and the consequences. The author is a vegetarian, but this is not the
base of the book. She shows why meat is important and what the different nutrition styles (paleo, vegetarian etc.) have in common.

There's a whole chapter on female orgaasm in this book.

the 4 hour body

Haven't had an opportunity to test the techniques out yet, but it looks pretty legit.

(edit for typos)

Somebody on reddit suggested this book for home workouts with minimal equipment.
It has a lot of home exercises and often includes ways to increase/decrease the effort required for each one.
It has been a really good book for me to have around. I am gym-phobic.
I figure that probably all the information in the book is available online via various resources. I like the convenience of having it all in book form as I stumble through my attempts to work out and motivate myself.

I generally hate workout books. I think they are a waste of money. However, I am glad I got this book. It was cheap and it was the exact sort of information I needed.

LGTFY :) $16.65 on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/030746363X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1421717171&sr=8-1&dpPl=1&dpID=51V18RN35jL&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SY200_QL40

The extra sugar is a way of getting customers to come back. There's a book called "The End of Overeating" that speaks to how fast food restaurants manipulate their ingredients (using more salt, fat, and sugars) so that it activates the reward center in our brains, resulting in people coming back for more.

Makes sense to me. When I haven't had fast food for so long, I don't crave it.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605294578

Taken from [This Post] (https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/6eoiht/dieting_tips_for_the_beginner/)

3) It’s possible to succeed on a diet of pop tarts, Mountain Dew, pizza, and fried chicken, but this is not ideal. Calorie dense foods like donuts and french fries (as well as most forms of liquid calories) are easy to eat and are largely devoid of fiber and micronutrients. Therefore, we can consume large quantities of these foods quickly and mindlessly without ever becoming full. In some cases, these foods are even artificially engineered to override our normal inhibitions, making it incredibly difficult to stop eating once you start (see [The End of Overeating] (https://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605294578)). It’s straightforward to see why these types of foods can cause us to overconsume calories. These foods are not off limits, but one should always consume them slowly and mindfully and be careful to choose a portion size that fits within one’s macronutrient framework.

It actually is called that haha.
THE BIG BOOK has basically every excersize that's worth a damn in the gym as well as things to eat and workout programs inside.
I sound like a commercial for this book so I'm going to stop talking about it

But if you're looking at a workout book to switch up your exercises or just correct techniques in the gym, this is a good one to go by.

go find a copy of this book
https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Weight-Lean-Peak-Performance/dp/1934030996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482990618&sr=8-1&keywords=racing+weight

It can really be summarized with the following paragraph:
There are 10 basic categories of food. Listed in descending order of overall quality, they are: vegetables; fruit; nuts, seeds, and healthy oils; high-quality meat and seafood; whole grains; dairy; refined grains; low-quality meat and seafood; sweets; and fried foods. Each week, try to eat each item on this list more often than any item following it. That’s it.

I would strongly recommend starting with this book. It will explode a lot of the myths about cholesterol for you.

Lot of people use it to alleviate muscle soreness. It's controversial whether it actually works or not, but it does make me feel better, at least for a short time.

I actually use it to burn body fat, which I learned in Ferriss' 4 Hour Body.