I want to lose 7 stones in 8 - 12 months. Is this the wrong diet?

I facepalmed reading this.

You will fail miserably after less than a week.

1) Losing weight purely for vanity reasons. So you lose the weight and get a gf and your confidence goes up. You stop bothering with fitness and get fat again. This is what happens to pretty much every married middle aged men on the planet. No women to impress anymore so they don't bother. Even worse what if you get s gf halfway through your weight loss? Again all your motivation gone. I strongly advocate weight loss primarily for health reasons. That way you will be more likely to stick with it long term.

2) 8 stones in 8 months. I am not going to blindly say that this is too fast because if you are extremely obese then it is perfectly possible, however if you are not then you would have to go to concentration camp to lose weight that fast. You would also get terrible stretch marks.

3) Not doing weights from day one. Weights build muscle which burn more calories which is why you should do it as soon as possible.

4) 2 hours a day 5 days a week in the gym. You will guaranteed get bored and quit. Furthermore it's completely pointless because all exercise does is raise your metabolism which can be achieved in much less times with shorter high intensity workouts. "burning off your dinner on the treadmill" is a myth because you burn like 300- 400 calories an hour on the treadmill. That's like one slice of cake. How fast can you eat one slice of cake?

5) Smoothies. Smoothies are actually not as healthy as you think. All that condensed fruit means that it is full of sugar plus the fact that it's liquid means that it doesn't fill you as well. Honestly aside from the vitamins you would be better off drinking a coke for breakfast.

6) Hamster food. C'mon man boiled egg and salad for dinner? Sounds like some anorexic diet straight out of Cosmo magazine. You will get depressed so fast when you see your friends loading KFC and cake into their mouths while you poke your salad that it won't be funny. Even worse than this is that you are not getting the right macros, where's your carbs and fat man?

7) Three meals. You will get hungry. If you are going to eat small portions (which is a good idea) eat more often. Have six meals.

8) At least 2 litres of water per day. Meh the more water the merrier but there is no strict minimum, just make sure to reach for the water rather then juice whenever you're thirsty.

9) No eating after 7pm. Absolutely unnecessary. Anyone who tells you that eating at night makes you fat has a PhD in Broscience.

My advice to you is to forget gym cardio but take up a sport instead, lift more, learn about eating a balanced diet and above all that at the end of the day for weight loss it doesn't matter what you eat so long as you're under the amount of calories that you need for maintenance. Oh and ditch the time limit.

Wow, some harsh words! but many thanks, looked at things at a different perspective.

I just weight myself, I am 18 stones exactly, so forget about 8 stone target. I want to set a target of say 6 stones in a year.

I'm not doing it just to build up confidence and get a girlfriend mainly, but my main priority is to be healthy, I am nearly 20 and I want to live as long as possible. I also have a niece and a newphew, I want to make sure I am around to see them. My confidence is really bad, by getting down to my target weight, i'll be able to venture out more, get a better job etc.

I also have manboobs, and it's mostly fat tissue, thinking back to what i say about just doing cardio was silly, I should be doing a mixture of both where the fat can be turned into muscle.

Can someone recommend me a daily calorie intake that i should be setting myself. Also any refrences to websites where I know what food i should be buying for breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Another question bread, cut it out completely? what about wholemealbread? brown pasta? brown rice?

I go to bed late also, average around 1am. Is it important that i hit the pillow earlier?

many thanks to everyone's replies.

That's great! How did you start, how many minutes, and how many minutes do you do now? I am curious how you got into it.