Hello, I'm new here and I decided to make this post to help get myself motivated and hopefully get some personal information that isnt found in all the stickys i've read. :p

Basically I'm a student from Ireland currently living in the North of England right now (Manchester) and I study Politics. I've decided to get on track to losing a lot of weight between now and the end of summer. There is a month and a half left untill I go home for summer and I would love to lose a bit of weight before going over and ofcourse, continue with it when I am home throughout the summer. Idealy I want to lose about 20lbs / 1 and a halfish stone before the end of June when I go on holiday with friends for a week, but I'll welcome more weight lost if possible :nod:

I'm a staggering 20 stone, or 280lbs, and a few years ago I lost weight before this, roughly 30 to 40 lbs however I basically starved myself, lived of vegetable soups and fruit and worked out for hours and I felt like death. I eventually just stopped out of tiredness and I was happy with how I looked a bit because I was carrying the extra weight well due to my height. Well eventually I put on about 20lbs again over the space of about 3 years and I'm not as bad as i use to be but I'm still very very heavy and would like to solve the problem.

My problem is my addiction to food, or certain foods. I drink a lot of fizzy drinks and I eat out a lot, mainly take-away kebabs. I guess a good thing out of all this is I enjoy eating fruit and vegetables and I have absolutely no interest in sweets and chocolate, and have little interest in crisps. The bad thing is again I feel like hell itself, I've got baggy black rings under my eyes, I'm constantly thirsty even though I do drink a fair bit of water, and I'm never comfortable, I always feel full untill I feel extremely tired and then hungry. To be honest, I'm just sick of it. I want to have energy, I dont want to push through a house everytime I go to the toilet, and I dont want to look like a zombie.

Today, I signed up to the gym down the road a bit and I should be able to start going on Thursday (tomorrow, wedensday, i have an induction first). :nod:

So lets get onto it. Tomorrow I go shopping because there is no food in the flat, I was back home for 2 weeks previous to this. I basically plan on buying some milk, good cereals, plenty of fruit and veg and some meat, and if I can find them, some almond nuts because I like them. It should be enough I hope.

Any tips on how not to end up getting a take-away food when the food I've already bought looks unappetising? Any other tips? When I start working out I basically plan on breaking myself in by doing cardio and some weight lifting when I fix a proper plan during the week, but I want to also have better fitness levels.

I guess a lot of this post doesnt have a point otherwise, I just wanted to get a lot of things off my chest aswell, tell someone. I cant tell my friends and family because I'm in another country :nope:

hi :) , im having issues myself. although ive recently sprained my ankle and this week ive been really concentrating on my diet. i dont even know how good my diet is but i like it. breakfast- 1/4 cup fiber one cereal dry, nonfat yogurt(a cup) and a water with powder with protein that my father bought me, morning break- a pickle, i know its full of salt but i love pickles. lunch- a sandwhich with high fiber bread, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, 1 slice veggie cheese,1 slice soy turkey(i dont eat meat), cup of grapes and a fiber one peanut butter bar. afternoon break- an apple and a serving size of low sodium goldfish, when i get home i have another drink with water and the powder because it seems to stave off hunger for an hour or so,for dinner i have a frozen burrito from amys i think it is, i dip it in bbq sauce its the best thing ever. snack is frozen fruit or/and 100 cal bag of popcorn. maybe some of those ideas will help :whistle:

Welcome, and good luck! I think a way to make yourself eat clean as opposed to take away food is to always have enough of the right, healthy foods around the house. Stock up on your fruit and veg, lean meat, brown rice, etc. Otherwise, it's so easy to lift up the phone and order a pizza or pop out for fast food! :gl:

Welcome to JSF:)

Any tips on how not to end up getting a take-away food when the food I've already bought looks unappetising? Any other tips? When I start working out I basically plan on breaking myself in by doing cardio and some weight lifting when I fix a proper plan during the week, but I want to also have better fitness levels.

One thing that worked for me in the past was simply reminding myself why I was doing everything. The next time you think about picking up some kebabs, just ask yourself, "Do I really need this? Do I want this more than I want a nice lean body?" You just need to remind yourself that you're working towards a goal. You could also have a weekly cheat meal to feed the cravings once a week. It will give you something to look foward to:nod:

Hey Connolly, you have the right attitude about the whole fat loss thing. From your post you seem to be a perfect candidate for it. i too was that big and always uncomfortable. my pants never fit right, the were always too big, too tight, too something other than comfortable. My shirts were always too long in the arms and too short to cover my belly. We should go in business making plus size clothes for men.

My advice would be to get your diet sorted out first and foremost. That is the single most important thing you can do. Look at the stickies at the top of these pages and read gravityhomers post about what to do. it is long but lays it out very well.

When you go to the store, try this. You will want to eat 6 meals per day so try to figure out 6 fairly healthy meals that you can eat. When i started I was 300 lbs and I did not much worry about the ingredients as much as the calories. I had a set amount I was striving for everyday and thats whats I looked for in the store.

You will have time to sort out the protien and all that stuff later on as you progress. For now, firgure out how many calories you need everyday by reading the stickes, then shop accordingly. Then eat accordingly.

Small things will make a big difference. Just tracking your food will make an enormous change in you. Most people don't know what the had for dinner last night. I track everything and could tell you what I had for my 2pm meal on Feb 14th. When i started, just the act of getting a blank book, writing down evrything I ate, I lost 2 pounds the first week because I was thinking about it.

Diet soda, beer only once a week and only eat what you know the calories of. I lost 60 lbs in 6 months by using this technique. You can too. If you don't know the calories of the kebab, then dont eat it.

Your diet is like your bills. If you paid 80-90 percent of your bills you might think your doing pretty good but your lenders would hate you. If you do your diet 80-90 percent, you wont see the results you want. Best of luck to you.

Hey dluc, your arms are aawesome in that avatar. great work.

Cheers for the replies :D I'm taking the advice given and stocking up on healthy food so theres no junk food around.

crupiea, yeah I know what you mean on the clothes issue, its so hard. The only clothes that fit well enough happen to cost a bomb and for a student I can't go out and spend 200 quid on a few pairs of jeans ;) I'm going go pick up a small notepad later then and keep a track of what I've aten and I guess I wont worry too much about my macronutrients untill I get into the groove? Instead, just eating healthy food?

Dont suppose I could get some help on making a workout program for monday onwards? vbmenu_register("postmenu_469520", true);