hi! im new

its great that you are starting young! You should have your BF work out with you, its always easier when someone else is with you. Good luck, you can do it!

I'm also ready to get healthier and get back to the weight I should be at. It's time! Friend me and we can help motivate each other

New Folks. I'm new here as well, but my purpose for joining is quite different. It's to help people lose weight. I was a thin kid, fairly built in High School. Then as I got older, started slowly putting on weight. I'm 5' 9" and when I hit 240lbs 39% Body Fat, I was having trouble sleeping, getting out of breath, asthma was getting really bad, and my face was getting red patches on it.

I started by reading diet books. And trust me, I've read them all. Out of frustration; I.e. I'd lose 10 lbs, then gain 15lbs. All the information I was getting from all the books either contradicted themselves, or each other. Eat more protein, eat less protein, Eat lots of carbs, no carbs, etc.

Out of frustration I decided to figure this out on my own, and began studying metabolism, endocrinology, molecular & cell biology, and biochemistry. I began to understand how it all worked, and developed my own plan. At first, the weight came off about 3-4 lbs a week, by week week 4 it started coming off 2-3 lbs a day! I was concerned I was losing weight too fast, so visited my doctor often, and the blood work always came back that I was in perfect health. I lost about 30lbs in less than 3 months. (Kept hitting plateaus which I figured out as well). Within 6 months I lost 110lbs. I ended up having to eat even more to bring my weight up to around 160.

Today, I'm at 160lbs and 6% body fat. I have muscles, and full six-pack which are all cut. (Which btw you can't see unless you're at the 10% or less body fat)

I've written a book on the knowledge I've learned, which I've held off as I've recently discovered benefits of whole foods, RAW, and additional information in molecular biology which I wanted to write into the book as well. Today I eat probably twice as much food as I did when I was fat. And the 1st 30lbs came off without exercising (I was too heavy, and my shins hurt to run). And I did it without starving myself.

After the 1st 30lbs, my energy level sky rocketed. I'm a Infrastructure Architect (Computers), so sit at my desk alot. The energy was driving me nuts, so I started exercising, which made it worse (More energy). And the weight was pouring off as I was building muscle. So I started doing two programs a day (Insanity in the AM, P90X in evenings) not to build muscle, but to kill the insane energy. Before I knew it I dropped another 60lbs.

Today I'm 85% RAW Vegan, and the other 15% I eat whatever I want. If you're interested in help, just ask. You can also visit my web site, where I've published two excerpts from my book, which I think everyone should understand; Body pH, and Enzymes. I also have photos on my gallery. The big pictures are not even my biggest. And the last photos I took were from last year, so I'm more fit even since last year. (I'll get new ones out soon.) I'm not a sickly muscular guy, that's not my goal. My goal, is having energy, being fit and strong, without bulk.

Let me know how I can help.