OK Well I'm a beginner

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I'm new to exercising and taking care of my body. I found this website Beginner Workouts and today I did the workout A. I had to look some things up on youtube because I don't have access to a gym atm and have no weight except my dumbbell. My diet over all is pretty bad mainly because I have issues with food and don't like trying new foods. I've been doing some simple stretches before and after I workout. Today I focused mainly on getting the movements right since that is important everywhere I read about it. I've also been doing a mile walk every other day when I don't try weight lifting. I really am a baseline beginner. I've been exercising every other day since the 15th of December. I took a few days off I think three at Christmas because it was so busy. I'm trying to turn it into a habit.

What I'm wanting to know is what else can I do overall to improve my health? I'm 5'10 and 220~ I don't really aim to have lots of big muscles but I want a work out regimen I can keep up the rest of my life not a short thing to just look better. I'm actually ok with being a heavy guy, wouldn't hurt to lose some because it hurts my back and my family has a history of heart failure and diabetes. I wouldn't hate some muscle might like to have some tone but mainly I want to look out for my health. I smoke and have been trying to quit, I've quit for 2 years before and hope to be able to quit again soon. I like not waking up coughing everyday. Anyway any tips or advice for a beginner would be much appreciated!

Don't quit before 60 days. It will take that long for it to be a habit and harder to quit. Mix up the exercises. One routine will get boring and could increase the chance of injury. Take pictures. It is easy to forget what you used to look like and start telling yourself there is no progress.

I took a picture haha. I read taking a picture once a month to grade progress with a shirt off is a good motivator. The sixty days thing is new I thought it was 30 either way I don't plan on quitting regular effective exercise thanks!

Whatever you do, don't make it to hard. If you make it to hard for yourself you will probably find it hard to stick to.
Stick to your routein and expect to see results long term, like say in three months time.

Find out what body type you are and what works best for you. Read and follow the info on the net of what works best for you.

With weight lifting just do really small weights doing lots of reps. Build up everything slowly and you can't go wrong.

I hope the OP can take to heart the relatively simple dietary injunction to avoid all white foods. IOW white is a marker for starchy and fatty and sugary and refined-carb-rich, all of which will sabotage his weight loss efforts if he gives in to them.

I gain and lose 40 lbs basically every year because I have seasonal depressive disorder. First step: throw out your scale. Measurement is the enemy of progress. Keep a running mental tally of your calorie intake/output and find ways to eat a reasonable amount. If you weigh yourself every day you will be demoraized because weight loss takes time, thus you will show no change, no change, up 2, down 2, up 1, down 3, but if you look at it at the end of the week you see down 2, and the end of the next week down 2 again and again and again. but during the week you change in ways that dont make sense. Measuring only every month is even better.

Dont try and lose weight. It's the worst thing you can possibly do. Losing weight is an acheivable goal, you want an unacheivable goal. Such as having fun dancing. you can never have to much fun, danicng is both excercise and a social skill, and it will both tone you and help you burn cals. There are lots of fun way to burn cals. I have taken to doing a little me-dance when I do chores. The most important part is to raise and lower your center of balance (COB) a lot because it takes a lot of effort i.e. cals. So while I do dishes/clean/take a break from computer games. I hate weights, they dont burn many calories and they build more size than actual strength. Body lifts however are awesome. Pushups are the best exercise of all time. If you cant do a pushup: fail upwards. Failing to do 5 pushups works towards being able to do 1 pushup for real, doing 5 works towards doing 10 etc etc. Make sure to always do aerobic excercise. That "burn" is lactic acid burning you capilaries and making it harder to transport o2 to your cells. Do a streach between every aerobic "set" to clean out the lactic acid buildup and prep for the next round.

Yoga is great. Balancing is great. There really isn't much of a "sense of balance." If you cant blance it's because your teritery muscles are weak and can't support the weight. The more you streach and balance the better you will get over time. it actually accumulates over time.

Excercise many times a day, even for just a little. When I really want to lose weight I work out 5 times a day for 5 min to an hour depending how I feel. 20 min at waking, sleeping and before every meal. Literally just do some jumping jacks before lunch, it will boost your metabolism and you will feel more full from eating.

MOST IMPORTANT! Only eat during meals! I cannot stress this enough, and either plan for or avoid liquid calories! water is just fine thanks. coffee with little milk or sugar (i.e. not a latte) is also a low cal beverage. DO NOT drink diet, it may have calories but your body gets confused and reacts as if it did causing all sorts of problems. If you are hungry not during a meal it is because of bad habits and not need. If you do 3x sets of crunches: middle, left, and right, most of the time the hunger will go away. If it does not go away go ahead and have a small snack to tide you over: again, no liquid calories.
NO DEFICIT DIETING: so, calorie deficits are fine. min cals per day is 1200 and you should be way above that. as a general rule 2lbs a week is fine and thats a 1000cal deficit per lbs (figure out your calorie needs online). HOWEVER I am completely against all carb or all protein diets. if you start one of those diets you have to do it FOREVER for it to work otherwise you will RELAPSE! you need to work on a healhy, balanced diet. All you need are portion sizes! In general a meal should contain 1 cup of food total! that means it's not all that much! calories are compact and the portions you are fed are often WAYYYY to much. I usually assume meals are 500 calories or less, no more than 750. Your stomach is probably distended from overeating for long periods of time. Your first few weeks of diet you should feel hungry between meals, that is normal!! ! There is a difference between calorie need and calorie want! Your body will alert you to want, you can use math to determine if it matches with need and otherwise dispell the hunger with a little sugar/salt water and crunches.
After a few weeks your desire to eat will start matching your need to eat and you will start to experience "runner's high" and actually really enjoy your exercise routines.

Running, dancing, and guided exercise are the best for losing weight. Weight lifting is great for building bulk and body lifts are the best for building pure strength/ toning.

Learn to cook your own food. In the process learn how to visually measure calorie content.

Make arbitrary dietary limits. EG. I refuse to eat high fructose corn syrup. Why? Cause it's in everything and if I dont eat it them most of the time when I look at some tasty comfort calories I say, f**k, that has HFCS, I cant have it. Furthermore make rules like: only single serve i.e. dont keep any at home. Walk to the store when you want a candy bar or a soda. I buy one soda and one candy bar every week when I buy groceries. Self-deprivation is not healthy, but rules that enforce moderation are! I hate holidays, however because of peer pressure to eat unhealthy foods/ amts of food.

Find music that touches you. For me, I listen to trance because of the highly audible and consistent base line. I lift etc in time with the beat and it turns into a rhythmic workout dance whatever I am doing and I am able to transcend my limits. Sometimes I trigger an adrenal response to push my limits, but be careful doing that because you can damage tendons/ligaments.

I'm a little drunk atm but I will try to fix spelling/ formatting later. Some people will disagree with me on some points but this is what works for me. I actually would like to hear dissent for better ideas.

I too am a little drunk so I'll have to read all of it later lmao. I'm thinking of asking my mom if she wants to go to a dance class, it may sound weird but I want to learn to dance and I'd like to spend more time with her and be out of the house more it's all win win really. As for changing food well I'm in grandma's house sadly... Just finished school had trouble keeping a job that wouldn't affect school for me so I couldn't live on my own yet. I HAVE stopped drinking soda all day everyday, I drink water all day instead. And I eat much smaller portions I always have eaten just huge portions of things I like but just cutting down on snacks to 0 and portion sizes way lower I should lose something from these things. My family is naturally skinny I just eat more.

never cut to 0, instead make a routine. I buy a snickers bar and a soda every time I go to the store for groceries. since I go to the store once a week this turns out to be only around 400 kcal a week. Doing this prevents me from having cravings and turning to binging behavior. IE when I went on what was basically an anorexia diet in college I was only eating 1 sm cafeteria plate no higher than my pinkey a day doing electrolyte substitution for other meals. personally I feel like that was fine but i was getting s**t from my friends. however one day I was at a birthday and was served / forced to eat cake. After the first slice I went back and back and back and ended up eating half the cake (it was a pan cake that would have served 40 ppl. this is why I am deadset against black and white diets. Eventually you WILL slip up, so having a diet which allows for flexibility will prevent you from being demoralized.

Crazy diets do work in the short term. and some can be fun (like high protein diets, yay meat! most of the reason they work is the amount of motivation required to actually stick to them. You need to be able to tell yourself no, but also other people who are not responsible for your body. Honestly I should have just left that birthday party. Socially it wouldnt have been a big deal but in terms of my self-esteem breaking my diet really hurt.