I need to drop a good amount of weight

[Sulmor10]

Yo, I'll be really honest here, I need to lose about 50 or so pounds. That's a lot, if you put it in perspective.

Recently I've stopped eating my usual breakfast and swapped it for granola, strawberries, bananas and yogurt. I'm feeling a lot more energetic already. I'm also putting effort in to eat more fruit and veg, and less meat. Desserts and stuff aren't really a problem since my sweet tooth is almost non-existant. I think part of my weight is actually muscle, considering I am decently active, but I have too much fat right now than what is healthy.

  I'm pre-everything and still a bit young. Can anyone give any advice for this? I've been overweight since I was a kid, however a lot of it was due to not chewing, lack of exercise and extremely severe sleep apnea, and I really want to shift this and be healthier.

[LordKAT]

One thing that can help with both sleep apnea and weight control is walking. A half hour or more after supper will usually make a huge difference. You can start out with less but walk until you feel tired of walking basically. Increase a bit each day and soon you will lose weight, sleep better, and feel more energetic.

[AnonyMs]

I just lost a fair bit more than 50 pounds. The main problem I find is motivation. Without that its a lost cause.

Actually losing weight its quite simple. Count the calories in everything and keep it low. I didn't exercise at all, unless you count getting out of bed and sitting in an office chair all day, and was losing 3 pounds a week. Calories is 80% of weight loss.

There's plenty of diet plans around, but I personally think that in some ways they don't matter much when it comes to losing weight. Keeping it off is different, as you need to make it part of your life forever, and starving yourself to lose weight is not a good long term plan (but pretty much what I did to lose it). What you eat also has an effect on appetite, making self control easier or harder, and that's also where you might look into the type of diet you follow.

You may well find the sleep apnea disappears if you lose weight.

Good luck.

[sam1234]

I'm with you on the weight thing. When my old doc dropped my T under low normal, I put on about twenty pounds in the wrong distribution even though nothing had changed in either my activity or how much I ate.

Using the scale isn't very useful unless you only take weekly or so weights. There are too many vaiables that can change your weight such as time of day, what you ate in the hours before you weighed yourself and whether you have gone to the bathroom or not. (especially a problem if you are constipated).

I find that a combination of both diet and exercise is important. Just losing weight without exercising might make you thin, but without exercise you will lose muscle tone and endurance. When you exercise, not only are you burning calories, but your body continues to use more once you stop. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it looks different and uses more calories than fat does.

I used to walk a lot before I developed fibrous myopathy in both thighs, keeping them from bending at the knee and causing severe secondary lower back pain. Now I take my wheel chair for long rides for exercise. I find it has the same benefits as walking. Lots of scenery and time to think. sometimes its hard to get yourself motivated, but once you start, you're glad you did.

sam1234

[Sulmor10]

I just realised, I forgot to mention that I have horrible joint pains. I am however fairly good at sports that are more strength. We're trying to get a diagnosis of Asthma at the moment (the joint pains aren't really a problem in sports, it's more that after a few seconds i begin to wheeze really heavily and my face goes a weird colour), so will that make it harder? I mean, I can hardly run for 2 minutes on the treadmill before my face is blue and I need air, but I can do boxing for 3 hours straight with no problem. How can I make it easier to breathe during sport? I haven't really tried anything so I'm open to any ideas.

   I actually have been on a diet before, but it didn't really work that well at all. I only managed to get 3/4 way to my goal after two years, which was mostly gained back in the space of about 2 weeks. Is no carb any good? I was also considering going veggie but I'm in a house of meat lovers (I'm a bit of a carnivore too) and it might be hard.

[FrancisAnn]

The Atkins diet is the best way if you are serious

[FTMax]

Start walking consistently. Do as much as you can before your joint pain sets in.

Eat unprocessed foods. Limit red meat. Eat more vegetables. Look up images to reference proper portion sizes. You're likely eating too much protein and it's being converted to fat. You really can't eat too many vegetables. Figure out what you like and load up on it.