<p>Best advice - change your diet and hit up the gym. </p>
<p>Diet - Eat 5-6 light, healthy meals a day. Make sure you get a lot of fruits, veggies, and protein (mostly from lean meat like chicken, turkey, and fish). Also drink LOTS of liquids. Drink skim milk, orange juice, and most importantly water. Don’t skimp on it. Tons of books and magazine articles have been written on diet.</p>
<p>Exercise - You can go either one of two routes with this one. Either a) you focus on aerobic activities (swimming is great, as you know), making sure you keep your heart rate up or b) you lift weights and put on some muscle. Putting on muscle allows you to burn fat quicker, and you’ll notice a HUGE change in your energy and stamina.</p>
<p>I’m 6’0 and at the beginning of the summer I weighed 208 lbs. After adhering to a pretty good diet and lifting regularly (accompanied by fun sports like basketball), I’m down to 200 lbs and I’ve gained a significant amount of muscle. The first couple of pounds are the hardest, but after you notice a change you’ll be motivated to keep going. Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>BMI can be a useful tool but it’s not infallible. People who are either exceptionally large boned or well muscled often have BMIs that put them in the obese category when they are clearly not. For instance, Shaquille O’Neal’s BMI is 31.6, which falls into the obese range. But the last time I had cause to check, Shaq was definitely not obese.</p>
<p>So the OP may be obese, but then again, he may not be. So - please - those of you who feel some twisted moral obligation to convince the OP that he is obese, shut up! I think he’s probably in a better position to judge whether or not he’s obese than you are.</p>
<p>I’ve been working at losing weight too. I’m 6’2" and I started at 273, right now have gotten down to 255 and am continuing. Here is an incredibly useful resource:</p>
<p>This is a tool where you can enter your daily weight. It’ll log it and automatically compute a trend line based upon moving averages. I’ve found it useful for gauging my progress, keeping up motivation, and preventing cheating. Perhaps you can too.</p>
<p>Do you enjoy any sports? (Tennis, volleyball, soccer…) Try to find something that you like and you will stick with it longer. A lot of areas have rec teams where it doesn’ t really matter if you are any good- just go and have fun. Walking is better for you than running, especially if you are out of shape. You still burn a lot of calories without the stress on the knees. Take an ipod to keep yourself entertained. Whatever you end up doing remember that most people are too busy to pay attention to what you look like- if you act like you are enjoying yourself they will be cheering you on!</p>
<p>Start with the easy things like “no more soda”. It’s simple and replace your sodas with water. Reduce your portion sizes–and if you eat out, leave some food on your plate or take it home for lunch the following day. Turn the TV off and limit yourself to watching TV after 8:00pm. Keeping the TV off during the day will force you to find something more active to do. Take a walk everyday–walk up and down the stairs rather than take an elevator. Park your car at the far end of parking lots so you have to walk a ways to the entrance. Replace your white bread with a whole grain bread. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about what other people think about you when you’re out swimming or walking because the truth is, people will admire the fact that you’re trying to get healthy.If you’re in college, hit the gym–and you can sign up for a conditioning class. If the others see that you’re really committed, they will become very supportive.</p>
<p>Swimming is great exercise. If you’re worried, why not wear the T-shirt to the edge of the pool, remove it for your swim, and when you emerge towel off quickly and put it back on to walk to the locker room? It’s not really the T-shirt per se but the wet T-shirt when you get out that’s worse. </p>
<p>I love swimming as exercise. I would swim everyday during my lunch hour up to the time I was 8 1/2 months pregnant. You think that didn’t draw attention! But it was so relaxing, such good exercise, and I felt weightless in the pool. I would swim my 30-40 laps nearly every day. I never really paid attention to people watching me, although I did catch some surprised looks. This was at a small private college where I was teaching and the pool was only a few steps from my office. Several weeks later, a colleague told me that I had shocked a visiting Chinese professor in his dept. He whispered to my colleague, “In China, pregnant women don’t swim!”</p>
<p>jaf1991, of course BMI has fallibility. It even says that on the page I linked: " * It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.
* It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle mass."</p>
<p>Also, the big boned stuff is pretty much false. For the most part, people of the same height will have the same sized bones. </p>
<p>The reason Shaq is obese on the BMI estimator is because he’s an athlete, which BMI is not recommended to be used. The op is obviously not an athlete, or an old person, so BMI is a pretty good indicator.</p>
<p>About the asthma issue: About 15 minutes before you go to exercise, go ahead and use your inhaler. For the first couple of weeks of working out, you may want to keep it close. It provides peace of mind to know you are breathing hard because of the exercising, not because of an impending attack.</p>
<p>Keep an eye on whether the chlorine smell of the pool irritates your lungs. Some people don’t do well with it.</p>
<p>Start your program slowly and work up gradually. You’ll be able do well. Just make sure to not stress the asthma too much at the beginning.</p>
<p>To the OP- Since you’re a guy, try start lifting weights too as men tend to burn off fat pretty quickly (more muscle = higher metabolism = more fat burning). Since what you want- try to set up some kind of workout plan, including intervals to speed up fat burn.</p>
<p>To another poster who mentioned eating 900 cals a day and working out a lot, you NEED to MORE to lose weight because your body isn’t getting enough energy/calories and is in “starvation mode” where it starts conserving calories/energy instead of burning.</p>
<p>I work as a lifeguard at the pool so I see a lot of different types of people. Honestly, it’s more unflattering if you’re overweight to wear a <em>wet</em> t-shirt than none at all. Some of the chubby kids wear swim shirts, which are quick-dry and don’t stick as much as normal ones, but the overweight adults just bare all. Embrace your body as it is, while still striving to get fitter. Don’t think of it as “this body shape is ugly, I want a new one”, but more as “I want to make my body be the best that it can be” (wow that sounded a bit cliche). </p>
<p>akhman24, that’s a pretty sweeping statement. My sister and I are approximately the same height and my wrist measures 7 inches; hers measures 5.5 inches. Her thumb is smaller than my ring finger. There is a lot of variation from person to person.</p>
<p>“big boned” doesn’t really mean the actual thickness or size of the bones. More of the overall bone structure. Which does very greatly between people.</p>
<p>Either way, it really doesn’t matter. lahlahlah.</p>
<p>I didn’t read any of the beginning posts, so I apologize for repeating any information. I agree with CurrySpice’s post.</p>
<p>Swimming is an excellent sport to do in order to lose weight! It works all the muscles of the body without any negative strain or pressure. I find that I don’t even have to do crunches every day but still get a nice stomach from just swimming (the dolphin kick from butterfly helps).</p>
<p>One thing is that if you do swimming, make sure you know which strokes to do and how to do it.</p>
<p>As for your body, don’t sweat it. You wouldn’t believe how many fat guys I see strutting their stuff on the pool deck every day. Be proud, there’s more of you to love.</p>
<p>The key to swimming is not to slack. It’s so easy to take your time on each lap, but you really need to push yourself. Just like how running burns more calories than walking. You should set goals - 20 laps in 20 minutes should be an easy first one - and continue to increase your yardage while decreasing the amount of time it takes you to complete each length. Working in different strokes will exercise different muscles, but you still need to add some sort of weight-bearing exercise for total fitness. And use good technique. Swimming is a sport of repetition, you don’t want to hurt yourself.</p>
<p>Also, be sure to keep your inhaler close by; asthma attacks in the water are <em>not</em> fun (personal experience). I’m sure you know the difference between being out of breath and your lungs closing off.</p>
<p>Good luck, this is a great goal! While you’re losing weight others will be putting on the pounds. Happened to me last year, since my college’s swim team has a more strenuous program than my high school did. Don’t feel self-conscious, I always think it’s awesome to see people of all fitness levels in the gym or the pool, doing something good for themselves.</p>
<p>Ticklemepink- Tell that to my doctor, he’s the one that suggested I cut my calorie intake by at least 30%. I don’t know, he doesn’t know my diet as well as he could so maybe he thought I was eating tons of burgers before or something, but that’s what he said to do.</p>
<p>You can never be “too fat” to go swimming! If you don’t start exercising and eating healthier, you won’t ever lose any weight. You have to start somewhere, and any effort you make that helps you become a healthier person is great. Who cares what other people think about your weight. If you start swimming, you are helping yourself (not anyone else)</p>
<p>brillar, I think that’s what your doctor was thinking- you were eating burgers and fries Did you even describe your diet to him/her? I described mine and although it sounds a bit much, it was still filled with healthy stuff and she had no or little suggestions for me on how to drop a few!</p>
You wouldn’t believe how many fat guys I see strutting their stuff on the pool deck every day. Be proud, there’s more of you to love.</p>
While you’re losing weight others will be putting on the pounds. Happened to me last year, since my college’s swim team has a more strenuous program than my high school did. Don’t feel self-conscious, I always think it’s awesome to see people of all fitness levels in the gym or the pool, doing something good for themselves.</p>
I don’t know, he doesn’t know my diet as well as he could so maybe he thought I was eating tons of burgers before or something, but that’s what he said to do.</p>