Hi, newbie here...

I'm a 21 yr old lad in UK (weighing 14st 2lbs at 5ft 10ins), who is currently on a year's work placement for my degree (returning to uni final year in Sept 08). Before (and will be after!) this placement, I went to the gym regularly and was generally happy with my appearance. Now though... this working every day lark seems to have zapped me of all my energy and enthusiasm... the most exercise I do is walking to and from the bus stop, and to and from work, a stroll on my lunch break and a few jogs up and down stairs at home when in an out of my housemates' rooms/kitchen/the living room... it's quite depressing!

I get in from work and sit down and really have no enthusiasm to go out and exercise. I have come to realise, though, that what I need to do first is sort out my diet. I do not have meals, I just snack when I'm hungry/thirsty.

So what I want to know is, what food can I eat that will aid weight loss for two months - until my placement ends - that will give me a good starting platform for the summer to go out and compound my new found healty eating with a **** load of exercise?

I was thinking of going on a staple diet of weetabix in the morning, fruit for lunch, and fish & veg for dinner, and running more often. I really want to get down to 11st to have some definition about me, I am quite well built, with muscle as well as surplus fat, so losing fat will help this muscle show through hopefully.

Anyone out there who can relate to this haha?!

Cheers, MJP

Welcome to the real world

It's quite normal to need a little adjustment time after moving from full time education to full time employment.

You need to estabish where you're at a little more and then plan a course of action to hit your goals.

You weight 14,2 right now so you should probably find out what your body fat percentage is as I imagine dropping down to 11 stone is a little drastic.
If you find your bf% and then work out how many lbs of fat you're carrying then you should be able to get an idea of how many lbs of fat you want to drop. Knowing your starting bf% will also help you track progress as you'll be able to track your body composition throughout the whole process.

With regards to weight loss, so long as you try and stick to healthy foods the way you intake your calories shouldn't matter too much, the most important thing is the number of calories you take in during the 24 hour period.