Hey there. :P

As it would seem, I'm new to the community, and I've stumbled upon this webpage as I'm sure many others before me have as well: To adopt a healthier lifestyle, in some way or another.

To begin, I've always been a very unhealthy eater. Influenced by my family, generally, whom are all overweight, I've been eating fried, frozen/microwaved dinners, fast food, etc, with very little fruit, vegetable, and other healthy foods intervening.

I THINK I'm about 150 pounds, and I'm about 5'10". A week ago, I moved in to a new house, and during the entire moving process, for about five days straight, I had nothing but fast food for lunch and dinner, and it made me pretty sick. Sadly, but thankfully, that was the breaking point for me. Now I'm swearing off fast-food, microwaveable dinners, soda, and what-have-you. Now I'm incorporating vegetables, fruit, and hopefully other healthy meals in to my diet, daily, and what once was a life consumed by the computer and videogames, will now be replaced with some planned activity.

I'm a relatively skinny kid. Or at least I appear as such with clothes on, outwardly. I'm slim but chubby - I've got deposits of fat on my lower-back, hips, thighs, butt, etc, that I wouldn't mind burning off - a lot of it is loose skin and such from when I used to be slightly overweight(not sure what offset this.)

Anyhow, my goal is to, oddly enough, gain weight - but lose fat and gain muscle. Soon, in a couple of days here, a friend of mine and I are going to start hitting the gym to see how we like it - and coupled with my new eating habits, I'm hoping to gain some tone and overall, look and feel healthier.

Anyhow, that's a mouthful. Or five. Nice to meet you all. This website and community in general is a very neat idea, methinks. :P

PS: Can somebody offer and tips/hints to get started? I'm a horrible cook, infact I don't know how to, and I'm 18. The rest of my family is unhealthy, and overall overweight, so it's difficult to rely on them, and they never cook dinner, thus I'm usually left with canned and frozen alternatives. Either I need to learn how to cook, and quick - or I need some healthy alternatives. Any suggestions? Thanks. :P

Hey!  I'm kinda new too (only been on here about 6 weeks).  I started with fruits and veggies, things that didn't need a whole lot of cooking (I'm not so awesome at cooking just yet) then worked in brown rice, chicken, just added things little by little.  Read lables, that's a big deal and I never did it until I joined up here.  Also what helped me (and this is just me) is that I bought a Foreman grill, no thinking requred, throw on some chicken, in a few minutes its done.  Fish works out great on there too.  Good luck, there's lots of people to help on here!

-Janine

the foreman grill isn't so bad. it's not my style, though. i'm just the type of person to start from scratch. it's like this weird... automatic switch in my mind. i've tried it before, though! that was right in the beginning cooking stages. I never really diet, though. I just eat more healthily and exercise every once in a while. I've grown up on fruits and vegetables. I suppose I was an odd kid.

well, i bought a beginner's cookbook. i would look up some books, then check out reviews on amazon.com. from there, you can try going to www.foodnetwork.com to get more "complicated" ones.

pasta dishes are a life saver, too! but it can be difficult cooking for one person.

www.elise.com/recipes has also saved my life many a night.

i can only tell you about the food part! i'm definitely inexperienced with the gaining weight to get muscle part. good luck with starting!

Original Post by aloysius:

As it would seem, I'm new to the community, and I've stumbled upon this webpage as I'm sure many others before me have as well: To adopt a healthier lifestyle, in some way or another.

 

To begin, I've always been a very unhealthy eater. Influenced by my family, generally, whom are all overweight, I've been eating fried, frozen/microwaved dinners, fast food, etc, with very little fruit, vegetable, and other healthy foods intervening.

I THINK I'm about 150 pounds, and I'm about 5'10". A week ago, I moved in to a new house, and during the entire moving process, for about five days straight, I had nothing but fast food for lunch and dinner, and it made me pretty sick. Sadly, but thankfully, that was the breaking point for me. Now I'm swearing off fast-food, microwaveable dinners, soda, and what-have-you. Now I'm incorporating vegetables, fruit, and hopefully other healthy meals in to my diet, daily, and what once was a life consumed by the computer and videogames, will now be replaced with some planned activity.

I'm a relatively skinny kid. Or at least I appear as such with clothes on, outwardly. I'm slim but chubby - I've got deposits of fat on my lower-back, hips, thighs, butt, etc, that I wouldn't mind burning off - a lot of it is loose skin and such from when I used to be slightly overweight(not sure what offset this.)

Anyhow, my goal is to, oddly enough, gain weight - but lose fat and gain muscle. Soon, in a couple of days here, a friend of mine and I are going to start hitting the gym to see how we like it - and coupled with my new eating habits, I'm hoping to gain some tone and overall, look and feel healthier.

Anyhow, that's a mouthful. Or five. Nice to meet you all. This website and community in general is a very neat idea, methinks. :P

 

PS: Can somebody offer and tips/hints to get started? I'm a horrible cook, infact I don't know how to, and I'm 18. The rest of my family is unhealthy, and overall overweight, so it's difficult to rely on them, and they never cook dinner, thus I'm usually left with canned and frozen alternatives. Either I need to learn how to cook, and quick - or I need some healthy alternatives. Any suggestions? Thanks. :P

Heh, I didn't really know how to cook either when I started (a bit cheating in a way, I watch my mother work hard at the stove every day with the things she puts in it and how she makes things) but a good way to start is once you know the basics of how to get meat cooked well and know how to do it well, reward yourself with some herbs & spices. Can't go wrong with oregano or basil leaves, smells delicious along with some other herbs that are great additions and very tasty. Experimentation is always great; there are also great sites to find in Google for anyone. :] The internet is a great place. Have fun adopting your new lifestyle, and always nice to see some guys around here. < -- :] Boy speaking right now.