my story is exactly that...I was the typical jockette until the age of 18 (tall blonde athletic gorgeous in perfect preportions) and started on oral contraceptives.  What I have found out nearly 15 years later is that those oral contraceptives shut down my thyroid and facilitated me to gain nearly 100lbs.  I fully realized I was gaining weight after 20 lbs...and went to my doctor after exercising and dieting weren't do dick squat after 3 months.  He told me to eat less and move more.  I did this dance with him for 14 years until I finally was old and wise enough (at the ripe age of 32!) to switch frigging doctors....that's after putting myself through every fad diet I could read about!

I certainly wasn't sitting on the couch eating french fries dipped in mayo with a bucket of fried chicken!  I went to nutritionists, I did photo journals of everything I put in my mouth.  I did weight watchers, I have a personal trainer, I go to the gym, I play competitive volleyball, softball.  My doctor kept telling me that I was going to be type 2 diabetic if I didn't stop...he'd test my sugars and they were always incredibly low (hypoglycemic ...my body used what carbs I had too efficiently)...my cholesterol was perfect as was all my other blood markers.  Even at my highest of 309 lbs I still had a waist....all my weight was so evenly distributed and was NOT around my waist.  All I kept getting was this wasn't typical pattern of obesity and to eat less fat, move more.  I got pregnant easily (which was not typical for someone overweight).  My baby doc finally asked about contraceptives since I wasn't gaining weight during pregnancy really....and my blood sugar was low during pregnancy so they wanted me to eat more often!  Of course they recommended more whole grain pasta and vegetables...don't say anything about fat and protein!

finally after 15 years I had my new doc test my thyroid antibodies...they came back off the charts!  This was the first thing to come back abnormal in 15 years and I had to ask him to test it!!  yeesh!  from there it's been better but I haven't lost any weight (despite the 10 lbs after 1 week on paleo).  So clearly for me paleo is going to help...as well as the leptin diet (you can do it in combo with paleo very easily).

anyways....that's my rant and story....like anything we are not all the same eh? :-)

Stay away from chemical and hormonal contraceptives if you are looking for health.

Paleo diet high fat low carb is a sure winner.  No gym needed.

Howdy Beowolf, I started with The Paleo Diet as my base but have sense increased my saturated fat and eat far more fatty meats than before. It's working!

Exercise- The best way to lose fat is first by eating the correct foods as you have read above.

Until you can sprint you can do Tabata Protocol. Doing 1 Tabata session, first thing in the morning, 3-4X per week, will do more for fat loss for you than hours and hours of steady state cardio. Like my signature says "Walking isn't exercise, it's locomotion!"

The absolute best exercise for fat loss is resistance training doing full body workouts with compound exercises. Only muscle uses fat for energy. The more muscle you carry the more fat you can burn. As far as the theory of "get fit first and then gain muscle..." That dead horse has been FUBAR'd!

Thanks !! I am on Day 3. I',m in the same boat at Beowolf.  I'm 185@ 5'2 medium build. I've been doing cardio for 8 months straight and my weight plateaus around 175-180.  I do cardio for about 60-90 min, 4-5 times a week.   I think it's about time I hit the weights... !!!!

I've made the decision to not exercise just yet. Another ten pounds and maybe. At this weight, I've tried to and I could really feel the pressure on my joints and I felt I have to be careful so as not to lose my balance, so I'm not pushing that.

However, I find that I am naturally more active so I'm going with it. Getting more things done, so I am moving around more than I did before.

I've made the decision to not exercise just yet. Another ten pounds and maybe. At this weight, I've tried to and I could really feel the pressure on my joints and I felt I have to be careful so as not to lose my balance, so I'm not pushing that.

However, I find that I am naturally more active so I'm going with it. Getting more things done, so I am moving around more than I did before.

There are workout out there that are not hard on the joints for overweight people...  upper body barbell training (a set of bench press isn't going ot be any harder for someone overweight), swimming, even the elipitical or hammer strength machines in a gym.

the elliptical is my cardio of choice.  I do a lot of interval training though, I like it better.  I do spend a full 30 mintues on the machine, because I have to to get credit for the workout, but I do a warm up, then HIIT, then a cool down.

I have a knee that is a bit messed up, so I like the elliptical since it is low impact.