Hello, I have just recently become active again, both on this site and physically speaking, and was wondering if anyone can help me out with a new workout regime. I will provide all the information I can, starting with everything I can remember to put in this post. If any other information is needed, just tell me what I need to post, and I should have it up within a day or so. Okay, onto the information overload.

(Vocabulary Information: Throughout this post, the word "die" does not actually refer to me actually dying, it just means that I reach a point where I feel like I am dying because I can't seem to get enough oxygen to my brain and body parts, as well as I cannot seem to move without every cell of my body screaming in protest)

I am 18 years old, 6' 2" and somewhere between 240-250 lb last time I checked (about a month ago). I do not know my fat ratio or whatever, as I don't really ever go to the doctor (I've been there twice that I remember, once in second grade when I got a rock stuck in my ear, and once as a Junior when I got a migraine, didn't know what was happening when I got my warning signs [which I can now identify], and my teacher freaked out and thought I was having a stroke). I live with my parents still, since I don't have the funds to move out yet, so meal choices are limited to what they cook or let me cook (and it's normally the former) My resting heart rate is about 65-70 BPM, which, I believe, is some indication of my overweight-ness.

Goals:
I would like to drop at least 25 pounds of fat before the end of October, though I'm shooting for much more. I would also like to decrease my mile running time from a 9-minute mile on a good day to a 9-minute mile on a bad day, 5-6-minutes on a good day. I would also like to increase my stamina to the point where I can run or jog 2 miles without stopping, versus my current 2-4 city blocks. I would like to build muscle enough to go from 5 push-ups without my arms hurting/dying (specifically at my shoulders) to 25, one pull up (if I try at it for about 2 minutes, and I have done zero previous physical work) to at least 5 (having run for awhile, maybe lifted some weights, or, in other words, after some moderate physical activity), and benching 75 lb 5 times and getting tired, to benching at least 125 10 times without completely killing myself. I would like to increase my foot speed and accuracy (as I am also training for/learning to do the Melbourne Shuffle). I want to learn to stretch properly and efficiently, and to get the most out of whatever I eat, whether I have a choice in the menu or not. And, finaly, I want to learn proper breathing techniques so I don't die simply by breathing wrong and tiring myself out quicker than I should be.

Resources:
I have a membership to the YMCA in my town that I believe is still active (I haven't used it since around April), I live within walking distance of a beach, and the city I live in has more miles of trails through forests and such than we have people. I also make my own breakfasts and lunches, so I have choices there, but they are (again) limited to whatever is in the house, until I get a new job.

I think that's about it, just let me know if any more information is needed. Oh yeah, one more thing, don't worry about me not trying anything you guys say, because I'm one of those people who will try anything once. After that, it's up to the activity to decide. If it doesn't kill me, I have fun doing it, and/or it feels good, I will continue to do it, otherwise I will let you know that the activity is either killing me, or boring me completely out of my mind, so I would be unlikely to continue. Thanks for any help you guys provide!

To clarify further what Steve mentioned, you probably gained extra fat because of two things, eating too many calories and not getting enough exercise, so you really want to fix both.
But because it can be too easy to eat huge amounts of calories, first you want to fix your diet to where you at least stop overeating (especially by setting a hard limit on your total calories per day, for example say 2000 calories at most, it's easy to keep track of it).

However, if you then don't get any exercise and try to lose weight only by caloric restriction (lower than what your body minimally needs), you will likely feel deprived and unhappy and your body will fight you the whole time, plus the weight loss will still be slower than what it could be, and will still be limited to at most your basal metabolism (that is, even eating no food at all you would still be at say -2000 calories a day, while with exercise you can generate much bigger caloric deficits and use up more fat).

That's where any extra exercise really starts helping a lot, after you fixed your diet any exercise you do is free extra fat-loss on top of what you would have obtained from diet alone, plus it stimulates your body to preserve muscle tissue (while starvation diets encourage the body to dismantle more muscle to preserve fat in order to survive lack of food much longer, as muscles would waste energy while fat would save energy and insulate from cold etc).

There are also a ton of other advantages to adding exercise on top of diet alone, physiological, psychological (you can still have some sweets occasionally as long as you first exercise for extra calories on that day and still come up with a net loss, for example), etc.

Strength training as Steve suggested is definitely a good suggestion, but don't feel limited by it, if you want to lose that much fat within a month and a half, it will help if you also add any extra work that just plain burns energy, even if it is walking a lot more often (especially uphill at a fast pace like on a treadmill, which would not be bad for your joints even on a heavier frame compared to something like full-blown running, jumping etc), swimming, and any extra energy-burning activity you can squeeze in the week.
And if something is a bit too high-intensity for you initially, in terms of burning energy that's ok to reduce intensity and just do it longer. For example maybe running at max speed for 2 minutes makes you want to collapse and never exercise again, but walking at a fast pace for 40 minutes in the park or while reading a book is no problem at all, and burns more calories because you exercised for much longer even if intensity was lower, so find the best compromise.

After your weight is back in check, then you will want to concentrate your training on different exercises, but until then really anything that you can fit in that helps you burn calories and feels easy is something you might want to consider.

You can find also some of this type of information in the diet subforum, for example we had a similar discussion here:
http://www.americanparkour.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,159/topic,19180.msg238893/#msg238893

You can always google average calories burned for various activities like swimming a certain style or a specific number of laps, plus things like treadmills usually have simple calculations based on speed, your weight, and the amount of incline.

But more importantly the point is that you only need exact values for the calories in the food you ingest, not for the extra calories you burn, because those are always extra fat loss in the situation I gave you, so as long as you always low-ball them, in the worst case you will be positively surprised and end up losing fat faster.
Even when you are trying to use some extra exercise to allow yourself to cheat, make portions of icecream/chocolate/fries or whatever you want to indulge in very small and try to compensate with twice the calories from some kind of activity like walking/running/swimming and you'll generally be fine even with very rough estimates.

If you're up for some heavy reading, there's a really good article here that talks about the difference between setting up a huge caloric deficit and a small one, and the pros and cons of each. The gist of it is that different people will function better at different levels, and you've got to find what works best for you.

As long as you're not using HUGE caloric restrictions, I wouldn't worry too much about not burning too many calories. Basically, the goal is to make sure you're eating a safe number of calories (the 2000 you were talking about earlier certainly seems OK for a 6'2" male, but again, try it and see) to keep your body running and happy. If you do weight/strength training in combination with restricting calories, you're less likely to lose muscle mass/strength along with fat. If you do endurance-type things like DDR marathons or running in combination with calorie restriction, you're likely to lose a bit of muscle mass. If those are the kinds of things you feel you're more likely to stick with, though, the tradeoff may be worth it to you. It's your call.

One site that's pretty helpful for counting calories and getting *GENERAL* estimates of the number of calories you've burned is www.fitday.com. There are many others out there, so if anyone knows of a better one feel free to chime in.

Tom I'd really like to see the study of that obese guy, if you happen to have more info on that.

Alright, sweet, that's cool. So, pretty much, as long as I still eat and have fat, I'm going to be fine to lose weight? Oh, and I would most definitely like to see the article on the obese guy as well, it would prove that I was right all those years ago xD

EDIT
Is it possible (and safe) to lose 3.18 pounds a week? (that FitDay website you pointed me to is giving me these red letters saying to consult a physician for anything over 2 pounds a week, and that I'd need to lose 3.18/week to lose the 25 by the end of October, and 5.2 pounds a week to be within my "healthy weight range" by the end of November)

It'd probably be very very hard, but it's certainly possible. It's not unheard-of for people to lose more than 3# a week, especially at the very beginning of a new diet (it's mostly water weight when that happens). The amount of weight they're losing per week generally levels off after the first week or two, though.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to check with a doctor; that IS a lot of weight to lose very rapidly. We've never met you, so we don't know your particular situation, and none of us have medical degrees.

With that in mind, be super vigilant about getting your vitamins, etc., if you plan on trying this. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take a multivitamin if you're not already doing so. Even the guy in Tom's study did that - while fat is really good at supplying necessary energy, it's not so good at supplying nutrients you're missing in your diet.

I know you said you're living at home, and have limited options as far as your diet is concerned, but go ahead and check out the stickies in the diet board here, especially the one called "Eating Right: How to Get Started." That'll get you started off on the right foot.



EDIT-Oops, sorry, Tom! You posted while I was writing this.

Yes, it's absolutely ok.
Don't eat/overeat when you are not hungry. The 2000 calories a day is an upper limit, meaning you shouldn't eat more than that, you can eat up to that much, or less if you don't feel like it.
If you don't feel like having breakfast for example don't have it, that's perfectly fine, or if you don't feel like finishing what is in your place, put the rest in the fridge and eat it later, that's fine too and better than forcing yourself to clean up your plate at all costs when you are trying to lose weight in the first place.

Or if you feel like eating more at a different time (especially after workouts or cardio, when food is most beneficial to losing weight and gaining muscle) do that, as long as you don't go over your total for the day.

But make sure you are counting your calories correctly and counting all your meals and anything else you eat through the day, because I wouldn't say 2000 calories is all that much food after all, especially if you are 6.2 and 250lbs and exercise a lot.

If you didn't exercise at all then you would definitely want to eat less than 2000 calories to generate a caloric deficit, but I think you are always better exercising to avoid a bunch of potential pitfalls and problems when you can only control food.