Exercise

[Slothy]

I hardly ever eat bagels. x) But it's less random than you'd think--bagels are all carbs, basically, and carbs turn to sugar/glucose in your body.

Marry me?

But seriously, lose any breads or other grains, sugars and starches. Some people can handle stuff like rice or potatoes, but many can't and if you gained a bunch of weight then more likely than not you're in the latter category. You can try cutting one at a time if you'd like to see what has the biggest impact though.

Eat more meat, vegetables, some fruit (not too much for the same reasons you want to pass on sugar), nuts, seeds and oils. Get the carbs sub 100g a day. Go even lower if you can. It's not hard and you can actually eat a ridiculous amount of vegetables and stay under 100g of carbs, especially if you're going with the leafier green kind of vegetables mostly. Stuff like carrots are actually higher in sugar than you'd think and less ideal.

Protein and fat are your friends. Eat until you're full, but don't be afraid to have generous helpings of both of those to get there. They also have the side benefit of being tasty as all get out.

For workouts, anything that has you building strength and muscle will be beneficial. Generally more so than just cardio, though high intensity can decrease insulin resistance and help you lose weight more quickly. Stuff like swimming is good. Weight lifting as well. If you can find someone to teach you proper squat technique and spot you then you're golden. If you can't fix it with squats then you're probably going to die.

It's not what you eat but how much you eat. American portions are absurd compared to most other countries. Just knowing when to call it quits actually will help you lose a lot.

Couldn't disagree more. What you eat is vastly more important than how much. Sure, eating too much of anything is probably going to make you gain weight. But try over eating with a diet based on meat and veggies. Eating the wrong foods is just going to leave you tired and hungry two hours later so you'll eat more even if you don't want to, whereas someone eating the right foods can go hours in between meals of reasonable size. It's part of why people who simply eat the same trout but cut calories will almost inevitably crack and start eating more again. Not to mention if you don't eat enough of the right foods to actually fuel your body you're more likely to slow weight loss than encourage it.