The best way to loose weight is to do weight training. Sounds wierd I know but you also have to eat more (which I love of course).
Eating:
- remove all refined carbs from diet.
- reduce fat
- eat lean meats, lots of lean meat (I go through 2-3 chickens a week as well as fish and beef)
- eat 5 times a day
- eat more carbs at breakfast and taper it off during the day
- eat a little protein at breakfast and increase it during the day
- no alcohol
- greens such as brocoli and salad are your friends and should make up at least 50% of your daily food intake.
I like to eat normally and add a mid morning and mid afternoon meal of a protein bar or some grilled chicken breast.
Exercise
You should try and train everyday, at the very least every other day. At the end of each session do 10-15 minutes of abs (planks, weighted situps, leg raises, supermans). You should only do cardio once or twice a week but you should do fartlek sessions or sprints. You should never do steady state, the sessions must be tough and leave you drained. A cardio session can replace a weight session. If you do runs on a treadmill set the incline at 3-5%. Fit 1-2 rest days a week in to a routine where you only stretch and o yoga like exercises.
The training is split into 4 phases which you repeat as a cycle:
Phase 1 - Hypertrophic (6-8 weeks)
After warming up (stretch or a 5 min run/cycle) start each session with a big lift session. Either squats, deadlift, cleans and presses. start at 70% of your body weight and do 4 sets of 4 reps with 2-3 minutes rest. Build the weight up as you get more confident and stronger.
Then, depending on what you are concentrating on (chest, upper back, shoulders, legs, arms, etc) go through your exercises doing 6 sets of 12 reps with 30-40 secs rest. Weight should be just comfortable to complete all but heavy enough so that the last few reps of the last set are difficult and you need to cheat a little. That said, form is very important, if you cannot do the exercise properly drop the weight a bit until later sessions when you are more comfortable.
Phase 2 - Strength (3-4 weeks)
As above but you do 4 sets of 8 reps with 2-3 minutes rest. Again the weight must be so that the final few reps of each set are difficult.
Phase 3 - Power (1-2 weeks)
As above but 4 sets of 4 reps with as much rest as you need. Again the weight must be so that the final few reps of each set are difficult.
Phase 4 (rest)
Light exercises, stretching, reduce food intake.
Why?
Basically you are working your muscles to form micro-tears and lactic acid which is what that pain is you get after a hard gym session. These tears stimulate growth hormone to repair the tears, this hormone is fat-hungry so yuo become more lean while building muscle. Building muscls increases your basal rate (the amount of calories you burn doing nothing). The big lifts at the beginning of each session work your big muscles in your trunk (legs, abs, gluts, etc - what a lot of people wrongly refer to as the core) as you go through your session target smaller muscle groups so that you finish on arms.
Hope this helps. There is so much to go through. If you are ever in the area I can take you through a session and show you what I mean.