hey man, is it really worth the money for this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Optimum-Nutrition-Standard-Vanilla-Protein/dp/B000GISU1M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337902494&sr=8-2

Might get it, also I'm taking a lot of info in from your post on how you did it.

Do you britfags have the equivalent of a Walmart? I went to mine, and got a tub that size for about ten bucks. Here, let me help you get started.

First of all, you must set a goal for yourself. Saying "I jest wanna loes wait" won't do it. Look up the requirements for the branch you want to go into. For the Marines, the reqs are pretty easy, but ROTC is hard. These are my goals:
18-minute 3 mile.
20 pull ups
60 crunches in two minutes
60 push ups in two minutes
30 minute water tread
and 155 pounds.

Then, you act towards those objectives, and do your very best to accomplish them, no exceptions. You must do this every single day.

What to eat:
Chicken
Lean Meat
Protein
Water
And some eggs

What not to eat:
Bread
Carbs
Sweeties
Fast Food

Before you start working out, get some Cardio. Usually you want to do some stretching, then running to get your heart rate up, and when you're feeling at your peak, start doing anaerobic excercise, as in Yoga and shit. It may sound gay, but a good yoga session will get you well stretched and a good sweat. After all this, do your push ups, sit ups, pull ups, and whatever else you have to do. Then do those push ups, sit ups, and pull ups again twice. This all should take about an hour to two hours. My workout takes two, yours may take more, maybe less.

But do NOT take breaks. After each rep, it's fine to stretch and drink water, but nothing more than five minutes, or else you have to repeat EVERYTHING all over again.

Well I'm definitely going to join the TA, after that I'll decide whether I want to join the royal marines sometime in the future (if not then I won't need to train more for it).

The TA just needs some sort of assault course and a 3 mile run in 20 minutes I think

The royal marines is a whole other story, they need a minimum fitness to be able to do "A 3 mile run, Gym Test 1, the Bottomfield and a 2.5 mile section of the Endurance Course, which includes a 0.5 mile 'hare and hounds' chase, involving the remaining PRMC candidates to keep up with the PTI. The course lasts for a total of 3 days." . The tests at the end of the 9 months training are:


So I think what I'll want to do is pretty much the same as you, eventually. But I suppose I could set more short term goals? Like a goal for in a month or 2?

Those goals would be:
1) doing the 27 minute jog that I'm doing now, but without the 3 minute walk intervals, or maybe just one interval at 16 minutes.
2) Being able to do 5 pressups (being as I can't do literally any)
3) 25 situps
4) 5 pullups (same as pressups)

Also, I don't have anything to do pullups on, should I buy something? Or would buying weights be better considering I could use them for other muscles too?

[edit]
Asda and Tesco are our walmart equivalents, they're owned by walmart I think. I'll ask my mom to look for some the next time she's going shopping, being as there's no Asda's or Tesco's close to me.

I did the running and push-ups today (20 on my knees, burned)
The running was harder than yesterday I think but I pushed through.

My only questions now are:
1) Do I need any day breaks from running? I know I need breaks from muscular exercises (even if just by alternating), but do I need any breaks from the treadmill?
2) Should I get weights instead of a pull-up bar? Are they as effective?

Quote from Automaton

I did the running and push-ups today (20 on my knees, burned)
The running was harder than yesterday I think but I pushed through.

My only questions now are:
1) Do I need any day breaks from running? I know I need breaks from muscular exercises (even if just by alternating), but do I need any breaks from the treadmill?
2) Should I get weights instead of a pull-up bar? Are they as effective?

I would get both if you can. If your really trying to get in shape for the military i wouldnt take any day breaks from running. Id as few as possible from anything else. You wont get that shit in any military training so its good to get used to it now.

Quote from Ashlander

I would get both if you can. If your really trying to get in shape for the military i wouldnt take any day breaks from running. Id as few as possible from anything else. You wont get that shit in any military training so its good to get used to it now.

Alright :) Yeah I can cope, just wondered if it was actually worse for my fitness in the long run or something like that, but that's a stupid thought considering training is non-stop in the military.

I'll get both eventually, but in a week or 2 I'm getting this to start with:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002GHBRWA/ref=s9_simh_gw_p200_d0_g200_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1KZX2G9MZET1NQSB9P9V&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294
It seems good, considering it can be used for other exercises too.

I wasn't sure whether it was worth getting a pull-up bar at all, considering I can't even do one (so how could I improve), which is why I thought of training with weights first. But then I discovered training videos that showed that I can simply use a chair to rest on to make using the pull up bars easier.

Holy shit, that's the same pull up bar I have, but in white. That shit's awesome, but I'd suggest padding the edges of the bar that go on the door frame, since the weight makes scars on the door frame. Nothing serious, but my door frame is white, so the scars stand out.

There's a couple of bad reviews (not many, being as it's 4 1/2 stars) where people say that it doesn't fit their doorframe or it isn't stable on there. You didn't have any problems like that?

Also, I actually look forward to this exercise now :)
Being as I'm off college for a couple of weeks, I get up early, have breakfast, wait 4 hours then exercise. I have a banana and some orange juice 20 mins after exercise, then I have a shower and my lunch at least 1hr30 after exercising. I then do another 12 minutes on the treadmill and more situps/pushups an hour or so before tea/dinner (my own choice), because I look forward to getting fit so much :)

When I go back to college I'll probably just exercise straight away when I get home and have tea an hour or so after doing so.
Last night I was bored at about 8pm so I went to bed close to 9pm (really early for me, usually it's like 4am), partially because of the boredness but partially because I was actually looking forward to the next days exercise. It makes me feel energetic/happy.

I also decided to look at some other guides for the exercises I'm doing (push-ups and sit-ups). Here's a good one I found from a guy that has lots of good rep:
http://scoobysworkshop.com/zero-to-100-pushups-for-complete-beginners/

Going from his guide I should be doing 5 sets of however many push-ups I can from my knees, with breaks in between. Did this today and noticed it was much better than just having a set amount like 20. after doing as much as I could (could do 20 the first set, only 7 on the last set), my arms were burning and aching a bit. I can only assume that after the day for the muscles to repair this will have had a much better effect than just doing 20.

For fucks fucking god damn sake. I've been doing this shit, working my ass off for 2 whole weeks now and you know how much weight I've lost? Zero. Nada. Nothing. I'm still exactly 14 stone. Jesus. Here's been my routine:

25/05/12– Week 0
Weight = 14 Stone
Run = 27 minutes (3minwalk 4.5mph, 5min run 6mph x3)
Push-ups = (knee) As many aspossible - x5 reps (1 min breaks)
Sit-ups = As many as possible (crunches), then side plank, then other side plank, then front plank, then more crunches.
Food/drink = Less but still unhealthy,much more water.


Weight lost = 0

I don't get it. I've been working so hard. I say I'm on the treadmill for 27 minutes a day, but most of those days I've even also gone back on the treadmill a second time later in the day for 10-15 minutes just running. I've also only been eating mainly stuff like chicken, potato salad, beef slices, vegetables, and drinking orange juice and flavoured water. The past 2 weeks I've had 3 days of eating "bad" stuff, and that was only 1 packet of chocolate on each of those days (chocolate peanuts).

From now on I'm going to be working much harder. No chocolates at all. 2x the 27 minute treadmill each day with 2 minutes walking and 6 minutes running. This is really disheartening, however :(

Dude, you might want to get your thyroid checked out. But that shit sucks, dude. I've been stuck at 168 pounds for two weeks now.

Nah I dont think it's my thyroid, I lost a stone and a half a year or 2 ago. I think I'm just going to try harder. Was having a look at this too:
http://exercise.about.com/od/weightloss/a/losinginches.htm
So I think that could possibly be what's happening. My jeans do fit a bit better and I do feel like I've lost "weight" (to the extent that I was expecting to have lost like 6 pounds or something from the way I'd felt).
Nevertheless, I'm working even harder now. Only drink is water and orange juice. 1 cup of tea a day. Much less food. Instead of 27 minutes on the treadmill then another 10 at night it's now 2x 27 minutes, and the first one of them is with 2 minutes walking and 6 minutes running x3 instead of 3 and 5. Also started to do dumbbell curls after pressups.

My friend spoke to me yesterday to cheer me up, linked me to that artice. Reckon it could be what's happened?

It'll be tough, but you have to set goals for yourself that are beyond your current abilities. My goal, primarily, is to be able to run 3 miles in 18 minutes. As of now, I can run them in about 20 or 21. I started off with one mile, then two, and now I do six every day. You just got to work your way up.

And yeah, I didn't start losing weight until day 20 or 30.

currently, my goal is to run for the 25 minutes without any walking at 6mph (slow jog). I don't really have any other short term goals for other exercises, I'll just increase what I do every 2 weeks. I think after I can run for 25 minutes my goal will be to do it at a faster speed.

My ultra-ultra long term aims are to either
a) have the same sort low body-fat, toned body as Dexter Morgan
or
b) become fit for the military (bigger build, more strength etc)

Depending on whether I decide to join the military or whether to go to uni. I mean, if I only join the TA I think I could get away with joining them with the same body type as a) because they're only reserves and the training is nowhere near as hard as the royal marines.

[edit]
I'm also going to be joining a krav maga class in a month or 2 if I've lost enough weight (as you need to be fairly fit to start), and the training for that I've heard is also pretty intensive like in the military. It is, after all, a self defense technique designed for the Israeli Defence Forces: