Turning life around, looking for advice.

[Oba no cchio]

Hello, first time poster here.

As of June 23rd i have started attempting to turn around my bad food and health habits and honestly and truely attempt to become in better shape, health, weight, etc...

It was all initiated by a contest i am having with a friend, who can lose the most weight by august 24th.

At the weigh-in, i was at 241 pounds. for the vast majority of my life (im 24) i have hovered from 200-210, never going over or under, but since i started my current job about a year ago, ive done nothing but go up in weight because i was officially off my feet, sitting down all day. my old jobs always had me actually working, but now im at a desk job where i move maybe a few times a day at most.

For most my life i have ate 90% fast food/restraunt food and cooked crappy frozen foods or easy things like hot dogs if i wasnt going out to eat. yet, i have never gotten very heavy and ive never had any health problems.

About 3 years ago, i was at around 220 pounds and i lost 45 pounds through hard work and severe dieting, but eventually it all came back and all my work was for nothing because i stopped exercising, which i know was a mistake.

Since the 23rd of june, i havent gone out to eat once, havent had any sweets or cakes or anything bad for me at all. I am regularly cooking healthy small portions of fish, chicken, pork, and side dishes of rice or noodles of some sort to go along with it.

For lunch, i usually have light sandwiches of turkey and ham, or leftovers from the night before.

i am working out once a day every day for 35 minutes, doing cardio workouts with the game dance dance revolution, on a high difficulty level.

i dont eat breakfast (it doesnt work with my schedule)

my daily calorie intake is very low, and my daily calorie burnage is very high, but im not losing much weight. i figured since i am doing a total transformation that i would absolutely drain weight away, but so far ive only lost 13.5 pounds in the 3 weeks ive done it.

so my question for you fine folks is this
1. how much should i be working out a day to see optimal results? is 35 minutes long enough?
2. should i be avoiding rice and pasta and such?
3. does my daily plan sound like a good setup?

thank you for reading the long post and i appreciate any advice!

 

[User#725]

Congratulations on making changes to be more healthy.

2 lbs. per week is considered a healthy amount to lose. Most likely you lost a lot of fluid weight and now you will start losing fat weight.

Usually when you lose a lot of weight fast it will be gained back in a short time. Better for the body to adjust to the new routine over time.

Your meals should consist of lean meat, green veggies, and small serving of starch.

Breakfast is very important, don't skip. Your body needs nourishment in the morning, it has been fasting all night. At least have a healthy diet drink. You can consume this on the run. Try eating meals about 4 hrs apart. Can go longer between meals if you have a small snack midmorning and midafternoon (combination protein/carbohydrate not more than 15 individual carbs).

When you go without food or too long between eating the liver is overworked compensating for lack of nourishment.

Try to increase exercise to 2X per day.

If your calorie intake is too low, your body will go into starvation mode and not release the extra weight. You may need to increase your calories and increase your exercise to avoid starvation mode. This does not sound right to me, however, that is what the medical profession keeps on telling me. I was also told we need a little fat in each meal in order to lose weight, a teaspoon amount of healthy fat in a meal will work.

Good luck on your weight loss.