The best advice I could give is get an accu-measure caliper and test your body fat weekly, don’t even look at the scale. You can gain and lose 10 lbs depending on how much water you drink, and if you are an above average male in height you can sway your weight up to 20 lbs depending on your level of hydration.

Find out if you are a Mesomorph (which very few of us are), an Endomorph, or an Ectomorph. All of us are a combination of these three body types with one being more prevalent over the others. Depending on your body type you can tailor your workout because one workout will not work for all, that is why we end up paying personal trainers so much.

Build as much lean muscle as you can, the more muscle you have the more fat you burn at rest, which is most of the time. If you are not prone to overtraining Circuit Workouts kick ass because they are cardio-vascular as well as anabolic. As another poster said Cardio and Weights are important to do together. Morning Cardio will shred you. You will eventually need more than 10 mins a day, 20 0or 30 mins of cardio for fat loss, I have to do like 45 in order to lose weight. Walking uphill on a treadmill is great cardio for fat loss.

Calorie deficits will put your body into starvation mode after a while so you have to cheat, which I think you are doing I prefer the Zigzag method, it keeps my metabolism up. Study the Gycemic index and know it by heart it makes eating out a lot easier.

SLEEP!!! Sleep is very important.

I think that’s all I got. If I think of anything else I will post it.

Chris

I think you’re getting way too caught up in the debate. Almost any exercise (weights, cardio, etc.) for more than a few minutes is good. Don’t worry about the optimal length and intensity of the exercise just yet. Let’s be honest, you’re fat, so almost anything where you are moving or moving something will help you. Once you start to slim down, you can revisit the literature and start tweaking for efficiency.

I’d say that balance is more important than anything else in your weight loss strategy. Do as much exercise as you’re comfortable with. Same as diet. If you go too hard then you’re more likely to quit. At least that’s been my pattern over the last 10 years of being chubby.

Those sit-ups have done wonders for me. I even look forward to them now. Weird.

Good for you for making the change – stick with it!

* combine Cardio and Weights (you need both)
* If you do cardio on the same days as weights, do cardio last, and save your initial energy for weights.
* pre-workout and post-workout nutrition are important
* Set goals (don’t just flop about with an ambiguous idea, believe me, goals work! even just milestones)
* Allow for gradual weight-loss, it’s healthier and more sane.
* By week three or so, you might look in the mirror and suddenly realize you’ve lost weight (one of the best feelings during the regimen, gets you going for a while).
* Track bodyfat %, not physical weight. Try free sites like mybodycomp.com, or look around for one.

I know nothing about your diet plan, so I don’t want to say much about that. Just keep in mind if you start up weights: give yourself a little extra carbs for energy–it’ll help. Feel free to cardio-out those extra carb calories afterwards.

And do fun exercises too! Biking! It’s spring!

Again, keep up the good work—just think how nice it will be to fit into your old clothes by Memorial day weekend!