[jc4p]

First off: congratulations on the weight loss and actually sticking to a diet, that's a really hard step.

Anyway, I recently started working at Fitocracy, a fitness website, and decided to make a similar decision to yours. In fact, one of the main reasons I took my job offer was because during my initial interview the CEO looked at my workout history on the site and said "Whoa, nothing logged since March? We'll change that", since starting just under 3 months ago I've done down 25lb in weight and have gained a shit ton of strength. It's freaking awesome. Here are some things I've learned along the way:

1. I absolutely hate diets that consist of "eat this, not that", diets like this set mental barriers that difference between "good food" and "bad food" and can have lasting negative effects of "oh god why would you eat that that's terrible for you" which, combined with the fact that most do this to carbs makes you feel bad about yourself because you'll spend a lot of time on your cut thinking about the delicious foods you can't have.

2. You'll get much better results if you combine diet and exercise, you'll get faster results, and you won't have to be on such a strict diet because the exercise will make up for it.

I'm currently combining Leangains with a strength based workout program and have lost around 2-3lb a week consistently for the last 2-3 months, and I feel fucking awesome every day. I get to eat whatever I want as long as it fits in my macros, and my macros have specific guides set up to include being able to go out and get drunk semi-regularly.

[llimllib]

> 2. You'll get much better results if you combine diet and exercise, you'll get faster results, and you won't have to be on such a strict diet because the exercise will make up for it.

For many people, this is not true. Exercise uses up surprisingly few calories, and people justify all kinds of crappy foods for themselves based on this reasoning.

The classic example is "oh, I've jogged for a half hour, so now I can have this grande mocha frappa doppa lattechino". The sugary drink crushes the effects of the run.

So! Know yourself. Stick to your diet. And if you work out, you can eat a very little bit more. But crappy sugary stuff is always crappy sugary stuff.

Also, track what you exercise and eat so you know how you're doing.

[jc4p]

You'll note that I did not mention cardio at all but instead mentioned strength training, but yes what you're saying is very correct for someone on a low-cardio only exercise plan. It's very important for someone starting out to always be keeping track of what they're doing so that they can re-evaluate their diet and exercise plans at the end of every week or other time period.

[llimllib]

Strength training is a more difficult case because it really depends on goals. If you're trying to bulk and build muscle, yeah, you can eat a whole bunch more.

But other people strength train to look better while trying to lose weight; those people can do a leangains-type program, or just generally eat at a caloric deficit to cut weight. Thus, they have to watch what they eat too, strength training or no.

[StavrosK]

While I agree with what you say, it had the opposite effect with me. "Drinking this grande mocha frappa doppa lattechino will make that hour-long run for nothing, and I didn't endure being bored out of my wits for an hour for a lousy coffee".

This lead to quite the weight loss.