Hey folks! I'm new to the community and to my resolution to lose weight and get fit (as my tickers indicate!), and I'm hoping you ladies and gents won't mind me using you as a valuable resource while I plan my attack. I've done a lot of forum searches, but there are so many hits each time that I haven't managed to find the answers to these burning questions yet:
1. If I eat small portions of rather unhealthy food (high carbs/fat/sodium), but stay at my chosen daily calorie intake (~1500 calories at 212lbs, 5'6" height) and exercise 5 - 7 days a week, will I lose? Or is it also necessary to cut the carbs/fat/sodium? Since I'm eating small portions, I'm not exceeding the maximums for any of those values per day for an average 1500 calorie/day diet, but I don't know if a low fat/carb diet is required for me to shed the pounds. For the most part I'm not hungry even though I imagine I'm not eating much volume per day.
2. When calorie counting, is it a better idea to guesstimate high or low when figuring out your calories for the day (like when you go out to eat or eat a meal prepared by someone else, etc)? I'd rather be safe than sorry, but with the knowledge that too few calories is almost worse than too many, I'm just not sure which direction is safe!
3. This probably isn't the best forum to place this question in, but I don't want to make too many new posts, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking here: Are there reliable ways to build muscle at home without props? Do crunches, scissor kicks, push-ups, and the like count as "weight training" if there are no machines or weights involved? I don't have much muscle at all, currently (mostly just those that carry my extra weight around!), so I get sore very quickly doing these at-home exercises; once I build some muscle, lose some weight, and get up into the higher repetitions, will they still build muscle or only tone what I've already got?
I'm really lovin' the vibe here and I know that this community will be that extra little push I've always needed to lose weight and keep it off. Any and all advice is always welcome, even if it's not the happy kind!