what's unfortunate is that most people don't want to listen to me since i'm young (they think) and just write off my shape to age.

anyway.

the big tip is diet before exercise. if you're telling me you're going to exercise and not change your diet, then really powerlifting is your only recourse. you'll gain muscle, but your heart will be fu(ked up and you'll still wind up on blood pressure medication. Schwarzenegger had bypass surgery--after all.

starting with the old school food pyramid . . .

whole grains and such are great for you. lean meat is excellent.

you need to ingest fat, and the majority of it should be some form of unsaturated fat. don’t try to not eat fat at all.

you have to be extremely patient with yourself and committed to the diet, because you've been blasting your body with the tip of the food pyramid (sweets and oils) for 30 years, so unless you starve yourself on protein shakes and oranges (the unsustainable Hollywood way of losing mass) then you're not going to see results for a while.

common misconceptions made by westerners regarding foods that they really like, but are really, really bad for the body:

1. most dairy products: (why? focus on cheese. it’s made of four things. 1) protein, which you're getting plenty from plants, nuts and meat, 2) fat--mostly saturated, 3) salt--you can get ANYWHERE, and 4) a tiny bit of water depending on the amount of fat in the milk in the cheese. dairy really should be seen and treated like candy not an entire meal like cheese pizza or cheese sandwiches. a lot of people out there are eating perfectly good salads ruined with ranch dressing and cheddar cheese. and these people have been eating these things for lunch for years and wondering why they're still overweight! what about ice cream and yogurt??? you say? mostly made from the exact same 4 ingredients as cheese, except you can find varieties with less saturated fat, and then they replace salt with a TON of sugar--usually white sugar. unless you’re getting sugar free, low fat yogurt and ice cream, forget it. and again, these things are treats, not building blocks for meals. Anyone that tells you a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup is a meal is nuts.

2. Atkins anything: (fried chicken is good, multi-grain bread is bad, blah, blah, blah. everyone loses 15 pounds of "they don't know what"--which gets into how people shouldn't think of losing "weight" because sometimes that means muscle--not good--then the 15 pound come back in half the time it took to lose, because the brain which runs on glucose kicks in and says, hey, you're an omnivore a$$hole. give me some carbs! your digestive system needs fiber!)

3. white flour/white sugar: this is the strength by which all Atkins is derived. he was right about these things being bad for you. morons just clumped white bread and sugar in with ALL types of bread and sugar and then the poo-poo hit the fan. sooooo many poor saps writing off all grain entirely because some one told them bread was bad, when really the Atkins folks needed to do the responsible thing of outlining the difference between whole grain and stripped grain (i.e. 99% of the hamburger buns and bread slices served to Americans each day over the past 50 years--this is THANKFULLY starting to change). so if you're eating hot dogs at home and they're the lean 99% beef ones, great. but don't ruin it by slapping it on the cheapest white bread bun you can buy. pony up the cash for that expensive whole grain bun.