im getting married (hopefully)

I am no expert btw, but i think you need to decide what it is you want to achieve and why. From the information you have given it seems you need an overhaul of your lifestyle, is this something you are prepared to do? There is some great information in the stickies, it contains all the information you need to get started. I tried for ages to sort out my diet, by suiting information to my lifestyle, its only now i am realasing thats its a question of suiting your lifestlye to the information.
Make your deceisions, set some realaisable goals and go for it


As for comments from other people, some people are just pass remarkative, at the end of the day the type of changes you need to make can only be made by you and for you.

You don't need help!!!!!

You must decide today whether you want to be a fat groom and have the happiest day of your life or forever wonder what it could have been like!!

I got married last year and i love our wedding photos of both of us looking happy and healthy.

Help? not at all its a very simple decision really and you will be farrrrrrrr more jovial and won't be the fat friend anymore

as im generally the jovial type i laugh along

As long as you can laugh off massive obesity & a heart-attack before you're 40?

help i need help

No magic formulas.

Forget about special diets, training regimes etc

Your first step is to just eat normal.

ie most people have a bowl of cereal porridge or 2 slices of toast for breakfast.
You eat half a pig with bread & butter.

etc etc

Every person knows what a normal diet consists of. Some people just refuse to restrict themselves. Keeping trim & at the correct weight requires dicipline & constant monitoring of weight for most people.

Start light excercise also .

If you dont just start eating normal and excerising a small bit you're on the path to morbid obesity with that diet. you'll probably starting piling on over a stone a year as you get older and then it will be too late. You'll have permanently damaged your heart, probably get arteritis at an early age etc etc etc

Nobody can help you but yourself

While your eating less and clearly making an effort, your diet still consists of pretty 'bad' foods. The stickies are a good starting point, g'em (a double world record holder) really knows her stuff and I'm sure if you take a read and have any questions she, or one of the other smart people around here would be happy to help.

As a former 6ft '4 20 stone bloke - I can say that you dont sound fully committed.

I dropped five stone, lost most the fat and built up some muscle within a 1-2 yr. Spent about 3-4 years previous to that messing around fooling myself.

Remember when you're overweight the 1st stone lost is no achievement really. For me it was so easy to lose. Its mostly just bloated-ness and the combination of the last few meals!!!

Ya got to devise an "UNBREAKABLE" training routine for yourself.
Unless you're a Nasa employee and spent the week in space there's no excuse why you couldnt get in a 30 min walk a day at least.
Especially give the weather we have had.

The reason why you're finding it so hard is because you havent got any proper muscle in your legs at the moment. They literally cant carry your weight for a prolonged period of time.
The only way is to build them up by constantly walking until you can run.

eating at regular intervals is definatly the approach i will be taking

Will only work if you eat Gems diet.
Its fairly obvious you dont have a clue about calorie counting, so eating regularly for you could become a disaster!!
If by eating regularly you eat 4 slices of toast, or a pizza slice etc et c

i dont care much for fruit

Get used to it.
Apples, Oranges, Banana's & low-fat yogurts I found were a great way to knock the hunger on the head when trying to stick to a diet in the early days.

but basically you are aiming to not be hungry!

I dunno about this. When you're properly fat and over-weight, your stomach is bloated. You need to feel some level of hunger in order to shrink your stomach back to a normal level.

very warm conditions it was near the end of the working day

Which every other person in Ireland has been doing for the last couple of months. Fair play to you for getting out but honestly look at all these people out every day no matter the weather and aim to become one of them

in 20 degreee heat wearing unsuiteable jocks and freshely ironed levi chords

Honestly if you're gonna tackle the weight. Get organised man.!!

my diet is not going to bad for example today for breakfeast i had 4 slices of toast with flora (if you dont mind)and a table spoon of maramalade.pretty good huh!,

Carbs, fat and marmalade.
Why put both butter & marmalade???

Still not great and will leave you hungry very quickly. Honestly, whether or not you like it. Try porridge. Or at least a bowl of cereal & a piece of fruit.

(low-fat milk)
Flora is still butter so litterally a scrape is all you should be using.

I cut it out butter (for 1st 3 months) & sugar ( for life - really no need to add sugar to anything these days)

A banana sliced on toasted brown bread or rivita crackers ) you dont notice the lack of butter.

lunch one slice of a vegie pizza!

pizza for lunch?
Doesnt make a whole pile of diff that its veggie.

Again - one slice probably isnt the worst. But for the amount of calories its uses - you could probably have a gi---normous chicken caeser salad or salmon breast & steamed veggies.

After one slice of pizza - I would be starvin, especially if all I had for breakie is toast!

washed down with some flavored water nice,

Depends what you mean by flavoured?
Was it low-fat? ie artificial sweetner?

Or did you just add sugar to water - as part of your new healthy diet!!!!

the pist de resdance however was the diner 2 spuds with a small bit of butter and mayo for taste,

Who the hell puts butter & mayo on their spuds?

Was it even low-fat butter/mayo?

The amount of calories that used. You could of probably had another huge spud. Or a steamed piece of chicken & be full.

chicken stir fry , and fried mushrooms .

Who has spuds with chicken stir fry! Did you have rice also?
Are the mushrooms part of the chicken stir-fry or did you deep=fry mushrooms?

Sounds like three meals to me. Maybe not. Even so. Think logically about what you're just put into your body

For dinner: mountains of veg ---- eat all you want (spuds not veg)
Carrots, pea's, turnip, broccoli (great cos negative cals!) etc etc etc

1 piece meat - fish, plain chicken (steamed or george foreman if necessary) Sprinkle some herbs on it for taste.

Carbs - 1-2 spuds, No butter/Mayo
or
Rice - can flavour by throwing a stock cube into it whilst boiling.!

THROW OUT THE FRYING PAN -- NEVER TO BE USED AGAIN

the diet aint too bad i hear you all say !

Pretty crap, full of fat, too many calories for not enough energy, and starving at the end of it.

You really need to put some effort into finding out about whats good and whats not.

why did i have to bring up choclate again ffs!

If you're serious about this, you'll probably eat choclate 2-3 times between now and your goal weight.


ps
I hope I wasnt too tough. But I can just see a repeat of the kind of diets I deluded myself with for years.

pps
if you gf isnt over-weight, why dont you just add 1/3 to what she eats?

i dont plan on making and radical life changes yet (eg joining a monestery, starting pilates, taking the skin of chicken, self mortifacation etc etc),

To be honest. I wasted 3-4 years fooling myself and essentially getting nowhere.
Remember your metabolism is getting slower ever day older you get.
Every day you waste the harder it will be eventually until it becomes impossible.
ie. riddled with health problems which prevent you losing weight.

So even if you just cut back on putting mayo & butter on the spuds - -you might; if your lucky; just put on weight slower.
Also remember the 1stone really isnt going to make much of a difference to you.
At the moment I can increase & decrease by .5 stone every 7 days.
When you're a big man you can carry it. But you need to be really strict & not get into the habit.

Honestly the only way to do it. Is the radical one. AT LEAST:
You need to devise a detailed diet & fitness programme.
Make it your goal.
Even if you dont stick to it immediately at least you've educated yourself to how you will eventually need to live the rest of your life to stay healthy.
Knowing what you're aiming EXACTLY ; changes everthing.

When you dont go all the way and devise a plan its very difficult to measure what you're doing.
You cant remember everything in your own head and its very hard to get a grasp on ACTUALLY how many calories over your daily recommended you're going.

ie. knowing that if you have a feed of pints on the friday night & take away

---

means you owe yourself some excercise/punishment on the Saturday (if recovered) or Sunday to compensate.
ie. knowing that if you eat a greasy burger, you've used up 70% of your daily calories & will need to reduce your intake accordingly over the next 2 days.

The only way to stop like bad food is to realise how much pain & discomfort your inflicting on yourself by eating it.

ps

taking the skin of chicken,

Thats hardly radical!! FFS its actually cheaper to buy a packet of plain/skinless chicken fillet breasts.
Its then twice as nice to cook em and add your own herbs etc. Half the grease and twice the taste

however i have managed so far to quit the the morining gorging and have handed back my frequent fryer card at the local chippe

Its really good stuff that you have decided enough is enough. But honestly man. You may as well do the above if you dont get some structure to what you're doing.
I found myself having an extra packet of taytos thinking it was a good thing because I didnt indulge in the breakfast roll that morning.
When most normal people wouldnt touch either in the first place!

along with this i have managed to interduce a little jogging into my walking

Probably too soon.
I used to find myself jogging for 100 yards and then walking really slowly for 400 yards trying to recover.
You'd be better off building up the walking (power-walking) for 500 yards.
For weight-loss your aiming for sustained cardio excercise. ie you need to get your heart-rate to the stage where its working hard but you feel comfortable enough to keep going.
Eventually when you build up your walking and excercise you will start joggin as a natural progression.

so hopefully il have shed a few more pounds , fingers crossed!

Fair enough. Each man to his own. But if you ask me, you may aswell be happy and fat rather than take the extra hassle of being weight conscience into your life.
Cos with the above approach you're going nowhere. And very soon will find that the few pounds creep up again.
You'll get dis-heartened and have a burger.
Then 2 weeks later you'll decide to make "life changes" - do your current rountine but maybe a little stricter and maybe last a little longer.
Then find your getting nowhere and become disheartened again.

Suddenly you'll find its been a couple of years & you've actually put on weight for all your efforts. And you'll have become a weight conscience person but overweight & miserable.

Honestly Im more or less talking about about myself above, hoping it helps motivates anyone else reading this.
Wouldnt want to be too hard cos I spent long enough sucking it in myself.

pps
You're obviously a great bloke personality wise. Imagine how confident and happy you'd be if you lost 3-4 stone.

It really doesnt take that long.
Its already been 5 months since xmas. God how time flies. In the next 5 months you could change your life.
If YOU want to.