Q: alright its me again, the 5ft6,183lb guy.....my diet is pretty much a sadwich in the morning, a plate of chicken or steak and rice in the afternoon, and some fish and mixed vegetables for dinner....is this a good diet or should i be cutting down on some of thse foods?......will doing cardio just 1-2 hours a week be sufficient to lose any weight?...ill give that a try and the diet plan you reccomend

A: The foods you eat sound OK. Sandwich may be less than optimal, depending on what goes into it, but it shouldn't be a big deal -- just use whole wheat bread. Rice is hopefully brown rice. But the problem with your diet is that you most likely don't eat ENOUGH to lose weight! I know that sounds a little crazy, but the fact is if your body 'thinks' you are starving it then it will do everything in its power to hang on to whatever fat it has.

Let me try to guesstimate your current calories... A sandwich could be anything, but around 400 calories is typical for 2 slices of bread, a little mayo, and some turkey slices. Chicken or steak with rice is probably another 500 calories or so. Fish and veggies for dinner is maybe another 400 calories. So altogether you eat only around 1300 calories daily. If you fill out my Fitness Guide you'll see that I recommend that you eat TWICE as much when trying to lose fat!!

As long as you eat as little as you do it will be difficult to make signinificant progress losing fat and weight because your metabolism will be very depressed and your body will be in starvation mode, trying to save every little bit of fat that it can. You need to slowly gradually start increasing your calories, working your way up to at least 2000 daily, spread over 5 meals or so. Increased calories and more frequent meals will rev up your metabolism and jump-start fat burning. It will take some time, easily a month or more to build up your diet to where it should be, but once there you'll start seeing results (even if you happen to temporarily gain a couple pounds while increasing calories).

So I hope you follow my Fitness Guide suggestions and start climbing out of the metabolism pit you're currently in. Good luck!