men can have 2500 and woman 2000 calories a day. as soon as someone mentions losing weight people think of dieting and eating rabbit food. i say if you want to lose weight then cut down on the calories that you are allowed and eat what ever you want as long as you dont go over your calorie amount, because if you just cut out foods thats when you will start feeling bad for eating chocolate etc. if you go to the doctors they can give you some information sheets.

Detox. Eat small regular healthy meals. Do low impact aerobic exercise <maybe on a trampette> for 10 minutes three times a day preferably half hour after meals.

I agree with sweetcakes you should eat smaller healthy meals(and more of them, speeds up your metabolism)and anything in the water would be great. water will help support you as well as adding resistence to everything you do

Number one, make sure your thyroid is in check. If you're always tired and sick it could be medically related and hypothyroidism slows your metabolism and your dieting needs to be completely different. Also, while being tested, get your B12 tested too, it can also kill your energy and you'd be breathless faster etc. Never hurts. Number two, there are sites that calculate something called your BMR (just google BMR calculator and you'll get a pile of them) your BMR would tell you how many calories you can eat in a day to MAINTAIN your current weight. In order to LOSE weight, you decrease that number by 500 calories a day. If you're substantially overweight you can decrease it by 1000 but make sure that you do not go under 1200 calories a day because your metabolism will suffer greatly. Number three, exercise. I have found that the most effective type of exercise for me is circuit training aerobics. In my city we have a company that started up that this is what they offer. They have stations set up and you do aerobics together then you do a station (which could be situps, weights, pushups etc) for 40 seconds or so and then right back into the aerobics. If you do this continuously for an hour you burn a LOT of calories and it's usually pretty easy because during the stations, you get a small rest. You don't have to go all out starting off, ease into it. I lost 20lbs in about 5 months just by doing the exercise program. Although my diet wasn't terrible to begin with. Finally, get a friend to do it with. I always found that I would never go to the aerobics classes unless I had someone that was "counting on me" to go and the girl I went with was the same way, if she had me ready to go then she HAD to go. Good luck - it's a hard battle.

OK, this is not for everyone. In my family 5 of us have had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roux-en-Y_anastomosis). The procedure is a last attempt but it works. However, it is dangerous and I had a co-worker whoes sister died from it. If you go to a good surgeon, you should have no problems. I went to Dr. Fang in Phoenix, AZ.