I know that water is much better, and that it's not really much of a diet aid, but every now and then I just love a diet Mountain Dew. question is whether or not you guys think diet soda increases fat. It doesn't seem like it should, but if the general consensus is that it does, I'm definitely takin...

Pretty much the only reason I ate it so frequently was because of the seemingly lower price, but I don't even like seafood that much. I'll definitely switch to the sliced turkey and 80-97% lean ground beef. Thanks for the detailed reply.

Oh, ok. Sorry. It seemed low to me, but that's why I'm here. lol It's just like lowering your intake some and replacing most carbs with healthy fats and proteins. I guess it was silly to worry about carbs being too low. I was looking at the "Bikini on Labor Day weekend" thread, and I saw t...

I see, but I don't quite understand. Sorry. You don't mean to have 50, 20, or 0 carbs per day depending on activity, so do you mean add that number to weight or to 100 or 200?

Tuna's a pretty good, cheap source of lean protein, and I admittedly eat it on an almost daily basis. I was more concerned with it until I saw an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown was focusing on canned tuna. He, and some internet articles, say that if you eat light skipjack tuna, rather than a...

Okay. That's more fat and protein than I've been eating, but I can definitely give it a try. How many carbs are you saying I should eat, specifically? 250, 220, and 200 or 150, 120, and 100? I'm about 160lbs right now (at 5'4"), and the lightest resting weight I've ever been able to reach throu...

Which do you think would be worse for weight loss, if both come from healthy sources and aren't overdone? I've been lifting weight since October and have gotten stronger, but I gained 20 pounds almost immediately, and I know that most of it is fat (half of it holiday irresponsibility). I haven't bee...

Cool beans. Thank you. Your advice in this thread, as well as other one, has been very helpful. =]

I use to lift five pound dumbbells, and for the past half year or so I've been lifting ten pound dumbbells, but I'm not sure how much effect it's having anymore. I sometimes find that I'm doing more reps than I intended to do without even noticing. I can still only do ten lateral deltoid raises with...

Oh, I would love to get a weight machine with one of those, or a gym membership if I ever could. They look like really good exercises.
I forgot about leg lifts; I'll definitely keep them for middle abs.
Thank you for the advice. =]

Cool. Thank you.^^
I think I'll keep the cycles then and replace straight crunches with russian twists, which I've done before, but not regularly.

What's a standing man? I couldn't find it on google.

Do you recommend them over crunches or standing exercises, even so?

Sorry for all the ignorant questions, by the way. I'm just pretty new to exercising for muscle and strength, rather than just fat loss, and I want to make sure I'm doing it right.

Thank you for the reply. I realize crunches and situps are supposed to be harmful if done too often or incorrectly. I actually don't do situps, because it hurts tailbone. I do the alternative exercises they listed, like planks and bird dogs, as part of stretching, but I've never noticed a difference...

I'm an 18 year old female, and goals are to lose fat, and gain muscle. I want to be lean, but definitely more muscular than slender, so main focus has been on weights. I'm about 15 or 20 pounds overweight, though, so losing fat is important to me. I usually eat 1500-1900 healthy calories per day, 12...

Like others have said, it depends on the person and the degree to which they're overweight. Some people definitely do, but I think most people find excess fat unattractive. It's difficult to begin a relationship if you're overweight; I know people have definitely treated me differently depending on ...