I think that both Pocketducks and yeahihateworking have given great advice. I decided at the end of the summer that I needed to do something about my body. I was at about 250 pounds in August. I had heard about the Body-for-Life program a few years earlier, but never tried it. I decided to commit to the challenge and change my ways. The BFL program consists of a 12 week "challenge" during which you commit to following the guidelines of the program. One thing that I liked about this approach is that, while you obviously need to continue eating well and exercising to maintain your results, there was a distinct end in sight. It provides a goal to strive for rather than just a vague commitment to eat "better" and exercise "more." I finished my first challenge about 2 weeks ago and I plan to start another in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'm not working out much, but I am trying to eat somewhat well, even though I am not on a very strict diet at the moment. I managed to average about 3 pounds/week of scale weight loss over the 12 week challenge. I don't have BF% measurements before and after, so I can't say how much fat I lost and how much muscle I gained, but I have seen visible muscle gain and clear strength increases as well. Overall, I've lost about 40 to 45 pounds since August. I hope to lose another 30 pounds of fat this semester and to continue to gain muscle, which will put me below 10% body fat.
As I mentioned, the BFL program is a 12 week challenge. Each week includes 6 days of eating right and working out, along with one "free day" where you don't work out and you can eat whatever you've been craving for the rest of the week. I think the free day concept makes the program much easier to follow during the rest of the week because any time I want something that isn't exactly healthy, it's easy to tell myself that I can't have it now, but I can eat it Saturday. It would be much harder to tell myself I can't eat it for 11 more weeks. Also, the challenge involves taking before and after pics. I just took them at home with my digital camera since I didn't plan to enter the official challenge (which is free to enter and has a $1,000,000 top prize). I strongly recommend taking the pics. It's fun to compare pics every few weeks to see the progress, and it also provides good motivation to improve. There is no cost associated with the challenge other than the cost of a gym membership (which isn't 100% necessary; you can make do at home if necessary), the cost of food (healthy food is cheaper than what I was eating), and the cost of the book if you buy it. All of the information is available on their website (
www.bodyforlife.com), but I got the book anyway. It has some information about the "why" behind the principles of the program, along with some motivational material about others who have taken the challenge. I also use some of the BFL brand meal replacement products for quick meals on campus or at home when I'm short on time.
The workout portion of the program requires relatively little time each day. 3 days/week are cardio and the other 3 are weight training days. Cardio days only take 20 minutes using a high intensity interval training routine that gets your metabolism really cranked up so that you continue to burn higher levels of energy for quite a while after the workout, which is something that you don't necessarily get out of a long moderate intensity workout. The weight training days take me about 45 mintues to an hour. I do upper body one day, lower body 2 days later, etc., alternating each weight training day. The website and book both have the specifics of the workouts. It's worth noting that even if you're primary goal is to lose fat, you should still incorporate strength training. It burns a lot of calories, but more importantly, the muscle that you will gain will burn more calories at rest between workouts.
The diet portion of the program involves eating 5-6 small meals each day (about every 2.5-3 hours). Each meal consists of a portion of carbs and a portion of proteins. There is no calorie counting or anything like that, but I've figured that an average day for me is around 1500-1800 calories (around 250-300/meal). A portion of carbs is about the size of your fist and a portion of protein is about the size of your palm. Eating this often requires lots of meal preparation time if you aren't using meal replacements, but you can cook 2 or 3 meals at once and refrigerate some for later. I also drink a lot of water throughout the day. In fact, it's just about all I drink through the week. I drink a small glass of milk sometimes, but I don't drink any soft drinks, tea, beer, etc. except on my free day. This takes a little bit of adjustment, but now I don't even care that I'm not drinking those things. They just don't taste as good to me now, and water does. Soft drinks add a lot of unnecessary calories to your diet (among other things). By drinking water instead of Pepsi, I was able to cut 600+ calories/day out of my diet. 3500 calories~1 pound of fat, so just by not drinking Pepsi, I am able to burn an extra pound each week, roughly. Also, eating the right foods and eating them often helps stabilize energy levels and keep your metabolism working consistently throughout the day. I've told several people that the hardest part of my "diet" was eating often enough. It has nothing to do with starving yourself, and in fact, if you get hungry before your next meal, you didn't eat enough.
BFL produces results, and does it in a very healthy way. I am convinced that if I can do it, anyone can. It really is quite a bit easier than I would have expected. Even though it requires some work, it is a lot of fun to watch the weight come off, and the comments from people I haven't seen in a while are a lot of fun too. I also really enjoy seeing the small improvements each week in my workouts. As for going to the gym, I can relate to your concerns. The gym I use is on campus, so the mix of people will be different from a typical gym, but I was still self-concious at first when I went to work out. It helped me to remember that they didn't get to look the way to look without going to the gym themselves. Everyone has to start somewhere. I promise that after a few visits, you'll stop worrying about what others think. I think that if they even notice you at all, their thoughts will be more in line with respecting your commitment to improving your health than about whether or not you look like a fish out of water.
Even though I highly recommend BFL, the important thing is that you just do
something. You've spoken to your doctor, which is always a smart move before starting on any new nutritional or exercise program. BFL worked for me, but pick it or any other program that seems logical and practical and run it by your doctor to get his opinion. Keep in mind that you won't be able to get something for nothing, and there are many useless gimmick programs out there, but your doctor will be able to steer you in the right direction. Any increase in physical activity and any improvement in your diet will help you to lose weight or to stop gaining it (whatever the case may be), so the first step is to just decide to put forth the effort to change. You'll thank yourself for it.