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[Draignean]

Okay, some background is probably in order. This isn't just me going for the male version of bikini fit, I'm actually (if all goes according to plan) going to be wearing a full on, George of the jungle, loincloth. And preaching.

Spoiler: More Detailed Background (click to show/hide)

In Oklahoma, during the month of may, there is a festival known (rather aptly) as Mayfest. It's essentially a craft show/car show/art show/music show/freak show that spans several city blocks and lasts for a couple days. It brings out the most colorful side of Tulsa city, and is, in Oklahoma, the closest thing to Mardi Gras. (Bear in mind, that's like saying that a bombardier beetle is the closest thing in the insect world to an Atom bomb. This is still Oklahoma, and, even in the city of Tulsa, there are only so many people willing to unwind.) This is relevant because Mayfest is the occasion that I said I'd wear a loincloth. (I also said I'd dress up several other things, but Cthulhu priest and extremely stern nun don't require a great deal in the fitness department.)
   The only thing Mayfest lacked last year, noticeably and sorely, were good street preachers. There were a few, but they proselytized their Baptist agendas and Methodist mania (I am a Methodist, in point of fact) with the tired apathy one expects from aging prostitutes. It was rather disheartening.
     
I did remark, to the present friends and family, on the sorry state of the street preaching business. They in turn remarked on the sorry state of the art that was being hawked for my monthly food budget. One thing led to another, and eventually a half-bet half-deal was made. If they could open at least one booth at Mayfest, I would dress up as a rotationally-theistic street preacher. The idea was that I would passionately preach a religion for about half an hour, then get a costume change and preach something completely different. The niggle is that some religions, notably cave cult and that-one-religion-from-the-Life-of-Brian require me to rock a loincloth, which, in my current state, wouldn't be pretty. They seem pretty hell-bent on making their end work, so now I'm going to start working on mine.

     
I currently weigh about 310 pounds, this isn't quite as bad as it sounds as I'm 6'6" and built for manual labor. Still, it's worse than I've been recently. During the semester before last, I did weights daily and was in fair shape (still not loincloth fit, but I could bench well more than my own weight and felt good). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that in a while and, to compound matters, I have a 9-10 hour a day sedentary job. I work in a chemometrics lab, which burns about as many calories as playing Skyrim. (Fewer probably, owing to the lack of adrenaline.) So, I've lost some muscle mass, I've gained some fat, and I'm looking to reverse the process to the point wear I can wear a buttflap. I know this isn't going to be quick, hence the ten month time window, but hey, I gave up caffeine cold turkey, how hard can this be?

Known Problems,
Sedentary Job: 10 hours a day where the most exercise I get comes from going up and down four flights of stairs to refill my water.
Bad eating habits: I don't eat breakfast, my lunch usually consists of a three dollar campus mystery meat sandwich in a triangular plastic box. Dinner is, unfortunately, the largest meal of my day, and I'm pretty damn sure that's the least healthy way I could possibly arrange my meals.
Bad cooking habits: I cook well, I cook REALLY well. The problem is that things like Italian white pasta with artichokes and heavy cream, crepes, or my famous one pot Ramen, are all pretty terrible for you.
Dislike of Running: I know that the best thing to do would probably be to turn my walk to work (see below) into a jog, but, thus far, I've been unable to convince myself to by running shoes and sweats to replace my streets and steel-toed hiking boots.
Insanely Easy Keeping: Back in the ice age, I would have been a tremendous stud. I'm big, strong, and I can maintain weight on just about anything. However, since I don't have sabretooth tigers helping me run track, this is something of a liability.
Budgeted: In order to live indoors and actually pay off the hideous bills my college keeps sending me, I eat on about $35 a week. If you eat badly, that isn't hard. Eating healthily... that's a bit trickier.
No exercise gear: Exactly what it says on the tin. I don't even have access to a lake, so it's things that I can do by myself only.

Good Points
Sugar Free Lifestyle: Thanks to a lovely genetic quirk, I cannot process sugar quickly. Bad things happen when I try. In the time it takes a six year old to get a sugar high, I'm down on the floor with a migraine, desperately praying for God to give me a melon-baller so I can remove my left eye.
Walk to (and from) work: I walk about 6 miles (round trip) everyday. Granted, I mostly lose water, salt, and non-cancerous skin cells, but its something. I also take the stairs in my building, but that's not much.
Not past the point of no return: I'm still reasonably fit. At least, more so than your average tire carrier. I can do my sets (though I'm limited to stuff that requires 0 equipment), and I'm flexible enough that I can palm the floor behind my heels straight legged. I'm worse than I want to be, but I'm not "Arr, ye white whale be sighted off the port bow! Bring me harpoon and let me stab the devil!". Yet. I deeply fear that "yet".

Odd Points
Unusual Drinking Habits: I drink a lot of diet caffeine free Dr. Pepper. I really have no idea what effect this has, but, up till this point, I've been writing it off as flavored water.
Regular Plasma Loss: Tuesdays and Thursdays I give 900 grams of blood plasma. While this does have the effect of instantaneous weight loss, plus needing additional energy to regenerate the plasma, I have no idea what other effects it has.

MY PLAN SO FAR
1. Pack lunch. Salad with mushrooms should be norm, no cheese, no dressing. Never like dressing and I love mushrooms. Shouldn't be hard.
2. Eat less dinner. Pretty simple concept.
3. Shame myself into staying on plan by posting progress (or lack of it) on the internet.
4. Set up actual cyclic exercise schedule. Say, 50 push-ups, sit ups, and 100 jumping jacks centered around a stretch period in the morning. Then double that in the evening.
5. Bite the bullet and spend money on healthy things like Kale, Celery, and their evil ilk.
6. Cook heavy foods like pastas brown rice with those-things-Max-White-said in the evening, refrigerate them, then eat them as breakfast the next morning. Do not eat them as dinner.
7. Give up even the diet caffeine free Dr. Pepper. Replace with tea or similar.
8. Time walks and attempt to shorten them every day
9. [Your suggestion here!]
etc...


So, yeah, that's it. I have a vague idea what I'm supposed to be doing. I need pointers, protips, and people to yell boo when I start to fall off the wagon. We make this work, and I will be something seen/heard at Mayfest and remembered for at least ten minutes.

[Vector]

Make sure you eat breakfast and snacks.  Going without food puts your body into starvation mode, which makes you put weight on.

Cut the Dr Pepper.  IIRC that also has stuff that stimulates weight gain in it.

Make sure you get enough sleep every night, and that your sleep schedule is pretty regular.  Again... those things are all things that cause weight gain.


Otherwise, you clearly have a good sense of humor and seem like a pretty cool dude, so I wish you the best of luck.

[Max White]

310 pounds? Sounds workable.
You need to understand that every time you stand up, you are lifting a large amount of weight, more than my puny frame could handle at least, so to be able to do that you must have put on a lot of very strong muscle. Like you said, built for manual labor. The problem you face is not a lack of fitness, but rather an excess of weight. As such no amount of bench presses and squats are going to help you as much as a better diet.

Firstly, that pasta idea? NO! BAD! Carbs aren't what you want, you need protein. Try brown rice instead. You also want chicken, fish, eggs, nuts, greens, soy beans, some oats and if you can't go without it some lean meat.
Now don't let your eating habits crash, otherwise your metabolism will start to suck up everything it can and make life hard for you. Eat small meals over the day. Don't make dinner a huge meal, try to make lunch the biggest thing you eat.

Also, I'm not going to endorse jogging too much, because it is bad for your joints. Swimming or bike riding would be a lot better. Just remember that walking still works, you just need to do it for longer.

[Knight of Fools]

Cut the Dr Pepper.  IIRC that also has stuff that stimulates weight gain in it.

I can't tell this enough to people: That sweet taste you get from it? It's artificial crap but your body doesn't know that. Once you get that sweet taste on your tongue your brain sends messages to your body saying that it should be expecting a huge sugar rush soon. When it doesn't get it, you're body says, "WTF brain, you promised" and then your brain tells you that you need food to get the body the promised nutrients. You end up eating more, usually in the meal following the drink.

I'm not sure how that would work in your case, but I'm pretty sure it'll have the same effect. It's kind of wired into how our bodies work.


And yeah, for someone your size it might be good to stick to low impact cardio exercise. Save up and get an exercise bike or a gym membership. Cardio is essentially just making your heart and lungs work, so it doesn't necessarily have to be biking or running or whatever. You can do bag punching or dancing. Look up how to do cardio properly.

Turn your walk to work into a speed walk. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but just focus on walking a bit faster and maybe put on some strap-on weights or carry water bottles. The weight will probably be lighter than what you're used to, but if you work at it enough you can turn it into a cardio exercise and tone your muscles a bit.


Something to try out: Fidget while your sitting at your desk. Unless you're required to be perfectly still bounce your legs, doodle some pictures, spin that chair, and motion energetically when talking on the phone. You might annoy other people but you'll be burning a lot of calories doing it.

[Grek]

I'll leave the diet questions to other people (who have given you good advice already) and cover exercise:

You want to loose weight. That means aerobic exercise. Aerobic means "exercise that makes your heart beat fast and your lungs breathe more air" kind of exercise. Your body begins to burn fat after spending ~20 minutes in a single day with an elevated heart rate. If you spend less than 20 minutes a day exercising, or do not raise your heart rate while exercising, you will not burn fat. And the amount of fat you burn is proportional to the amount of time you spend past 20 minutes. 30 minutes is twice as good as 25, and 40 is twice as good as that. But you don't want to go overboard. Studies show that 2 hours of exercise a day 5 days a week is the maximum amount of exercise before you stop getting benefits from it and start becoming less fit due to injuries and fatigue. And you don't want your heart to beat too fast, or you will become exhausted. Ideal amount of exercise is where you can breath at a steady rate comfortably, can carry on a conversation with moderate difficulty, but cannot sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" at all the way through in a single breath while still exercising.

The exercise you do also matters. Lots of people assume that if you're not jogging, working up a sweat and doing jumping jacks while lifting weights, you're not really exercising. This is not true! As long as you're getting your heart rate up, you are loosing weight. Try knee lifts! They look dorky (lift one knee up to your hip, then the other, repeat) but are great for aerobic exercise. Try "walking it out" (walk forward three paces, walk backward three paces, repeat). Sit ups are a good aerobic exercise, and so are crunches. Alternating between them (16 pushups, 10 crunches, repeat X times) is a good way to keep your heart rate up while exercising.

Finally, you have to keep the idea of impact in mind. Max White is correct in that too much jogging will hurt your joints. This is because jogging is a high impact activity: it is an activity where you smack your joints together repeatedly. Jumping jacks, jogging, running, anything with jumps, kicks and ballistic motion is high impact. Too much high impact exercise will hurt you. So you'll want to do low impact exercises. Like those situps, or any of the ones I mentioned above.

[Draignean]

Firstly, that pasta idea? NO! BAD! Carbs aren't what you want, you need protein. Try brown rice instead. You also want chicken, fish, eggs, nuts, greens, soy beans, some oats and if you can't go without it some lean meat.
Now don't let your eating habits crash, otherwise your metabolism will start to suck up everything it can and make life hard for you. Eat small meals over the day. Don't make dinner a huge meal, try to make lunch the biggest thing you eat.

[Hammy]But I like the pasta...[/Hammy] Okay, done. Brown rice is good too, and I can do some fun things with that. Particularly with chicken, nuts, and/or eggs. I'm guessing this means I should steer away from breads as well?

Eating regularly is a bit tougher. When classes start again, it'll be a little easier, but right now... I can eat from whenever-get-up to 7AM, then I'll have about 25-30 minutes to eat lunch around noonish (somewhere between 11:15 and 1PM). I get home at 6PM, or, if I donated plasma that day, 7PM. Bringing almonds or something similar to work is less workable since I'm in a chemometrics lab. While we don't do as many experiments as less specialized groups, we still aren't allowed to eat while on the floor. Which is understandable.

Cut the Dr Pepper.  IIRC that also has stuff that stimulates weight gain in it.

Gah. I was afraid of this.

Cut the Dr Pepper.  IIRC that also has stuff that stimulates weight gain in it.

I can't tell this enough to people: That sweet taste you get from it? It's artificial crap but your body doesn't know that. Once you get that sweet taste on your tongue your brain sends messages to your body saying that it should be expecting a huge sugar rush soon. When it doesn't get it, you're body says, "WTF brain, you promised" and then your brain tells you that you need food to get the body the promised nutrients. You end up eating more, usually in the meal following the drink.

I'm not sure how that would work in your case, but I'm pretty sure it'll have the same effect. It's kind of wired into how our bodies work.

I'll probably cut out the DCFDP anyway, but I'm not sure that's how it ends up working for me. I've been sugar intolerant for a very long time. I have vague memories of when Halloween was awesome and I could actually have sugar rushes, but my migraines started to set in when I was eight. Sweet flavors don't give me a Pavlovian OMIGODWE'REGONNAGOFASTNOW, they give me a sick feeling in my stomach and a phantom headache. The DCF Dr. Pepper I don't like for the sweetness, I honestly like it for the roughness and slightly acidic flavor.

I'm going to see about switching to herbal teas and Sobe lifewater for lunch, but I really have no idea what diet caffeine free does to me. There's a doctoral student I know who can probably tell me where to get some truly amazing jasmine tea, so this shouldn't be too bad.

[Max White]

Bread is also not highly recommended, especially, especially white bread. The darker it is, and the more visible grains, the better. Good news if you like pumpernickel.

[Vector]

I eat huge amounts of "Ezekiel bread" because it's a complete protein in itself, but it's probably on the expensive side.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Low carb food. That's all I got to say. I'm getting husky again because I love bread, and I have a routine.

The 'diet' Pepper does not help, either. Imagine drinking a cup of water with syrup mixed into it, and that's soda, no matter if it's diet or not. 'Diet' is much worse for your health than normal due to the unnatural sweeteners.

Spoiler: Handy dandy list of why (click to show/hide)

• Artificial sweeteners are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar, activating our genetically-programmed preference for sweet taste more than any other substance.
• They trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat storage hormone, which lays down more belly fat.
• It also confuses and slows your metabolism down, so you burn fewer calories every day.
• It makes you hungrier and crave even more sugar and starchy carbs like bread and pasta.
• In animal studies, the rats that consumed artificial sweeteners ate more, their metabolism slowed, and they put on 14 percent more body fat in just two weeks -- even eating fewer calories.
• In population studies, there was a 200 percent increased risk of obesity in diet soda drinkers.

So: Cut the soda, try to do more aerobic workouts, like swimming. I bet you're already packed full of muscle and I doubt you should focus on that aspect.

[Eidolon]

If you've got a smartphone, I hear there's a nice program for it called myfitnesspal that can help you keep track of what you're eating and your nutritional needs. Drink water, not diet soda. The others have given you the basic information you need; aerobic exercise is good, but i'd still recommend weight training if you can get your hands on some weights. I'd guess in ten months you stand to lose somewhere between 40-50lbs if you manage everything correctly and maintain a steady deficit.

You may already be aware of this, but i feel like I should mention that spot reduction is a myth; you don't lose more bodyfat from the bodypart you work out, so please don't do anything foolish like doing hundreds of situps in an attempt to lose your belly. Just focus on eating correctly and getting exercise.

Donating plasma shouldn't be a problem provided you don't go and try to lift heavy or something afterwards.

[Jimmy]

If you do plan on doing running instead of going for a lower impact workout method like an exercycle or rowing machine, here's an interesting little way to make the experience a bit more fun.

https://www.zombiesrungame.com/

Load the app onto your smartphone and wear headphones when you run. It'll sync your music and give you prompts for running faster. Don't run fast enough? You get eaten by zombies.

Also tracks your exercise for you too. There's also an 8 week training version too. Prety good value for less than five bucks.

Finally, like others have said, stick to water. If you want to spice it up a bit, add a squeeze of fresh citrus juice from a lemon or other fruit. No soft drinks, even diet ones. Cut alcohol to as little as possible. Fruit juices, milk drinks and cordials are also out. If you can't see through it, don't drink it.

Also don't be afraid to branch out into new foods you haven't tried before. This includes buying strange ingredients for those recipes you've found online. Experiment with spices to add flavor to your food instead of simply adding butter, cheese or sweet sauces like ketchup and BBQ sauce.

[Eidolon]

Here's an infographic i dug out of my fitness folder related to running, proper form, periodization, and some assistance exercises that can be just done with bodyweight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ChairmanPoo]

Regular Plasma Loss: Tuesdays and Thursdays I give 900 grams of blood plasma. While this does have the effect of instantaneous weight loss, plus needing additional energy to regenerate the plasma, I have no idea what other effects it has.

This is probably a bad idea, and I'm surprised they even let you at the blood bank. If you do it every week that's about five times more often than it's recommended. Not only is that "instant weight loss" illusory (as it's mostly water), but you're probably putting a strain in your protein metabolism.
Do you get a general blood test afterwards, at least?

[Draignean]

Regular Plasma Loss: Tuesdays and Thursdays I give 900 grams of blood plasma. While this does have the effect of instantaneous weight loss, plus needing additional energy to regenerate the plasma, I have no idea what other effects it has.

This is probably a bad idea, and I'm surprised they even let you at the blood bank. If you do it every week that's about five times more often than it's recommended. Not only is that "instant weight loss" illusory (as it's mostly water), but you're probably putting a strain in your protein metabolism.
Do you get a general blood test afterwards, at least?

Plasma, not blood, and I'm doing it for the cash (It pays for my food budget) and the good of man, not weight loss. If it helps, that's a perk. Giving plasma is very different from giving blood. You give more fluid, but you don't actually lose (many) red blood cells. 

Short version: Two cycle process. The first cycle is a standard blood draw, used to a feel up a centrifuge bowl. The centrifuge spins up, separates your cells from the plasma medium, dumps the plasma into a collection bottle, and then starts the return cycle. The return cycle shoots everything that remained in the centrifuge back into you, thus preventing you from needing to regenerate whole blood. The two-step repeats for a couple times (four for me), and that's it. 

Since plasma is almost entirely water, you're able to donate twice a week as long as your donations are at least 24 hours apart and you pass the usual screenings for blood pressure, temp, and the battery of blood sample tests they get from finger pricks. 

Here's an infographic i dug out of my fitness folder related to running, proper form, periodization, and some assistance exercises that can be just done with bodyweight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That looks useful. I use taekwondo stretches normally, but I'll use that build schedule if I decide to take up running.

Load the app onto your smartphone and wear headphones when you run. It'll sync your music and give you prompts for running faster. Don't run fast enough? You get eaten by zombies.

My phone model is flying brick. I believe it might have the ability to accept simple voice commands, but so far I've never been able to get that feature to do anything other than dial random people.

[Blargityblarg]

Regular Plasma Loss: Tuesdays and Thursdays I give 900 grams of blood plasma. While this does have the effect of instantaneous weight loss, plus needing additional energy to regenerate the plasma, I have no idea what other effects it has.

This is probably a bad idea, and I'm surprised they even let you at the blood bank. If you do it every week that's about five times more often than it's recommended. Not only is that "instant weight loss" illusory (as it's mostly water), but you're probably putting a strain in your protein metabolism.
Do you get a general blood test afterwards, at least?

Plasma, not blood, and I'm doing it for the cash (It pays for my food budget) and the good of man, not weight loss. If it helps, that's a perk. Giving plasma is very different from giving blood. You give more fluid, but you don't actually lose (many) red blood cells. 

Short version: Two cycle process. The first cycle is a standard blood draw, used to a feel up a centrifuge bowl. The centrifuge spins up, separates your cells from the plasma medium, dumps the plasma into a collection bottle, and then starts the return cycle. The return cycle shoots everything that remained in the centrifuge back into you, thus preventing you from needing to regenerate whole blood. The two-step repeats for a couple times (four for me), and that's it. 

Since plasma is almost entirely water, you're able to donate twice a week as long as your donations are at least 24 hours apart and you pass the usual screenings for blood pressure, temp, and the battery of blood sample tests they get from finger pricks. 

ChairmanPoo is an actual doctor, and one who specialises in blood-related things (haematology? haematooncology?) IIRC. He's probably got the process and side-effects down, and would probably be very worth listening to.