Willapp

Ok, first of all I think you need to work really hard with your diet if you want to break the 210 marker - the best training routine in the world can't compensate for poor diet, so if you don't fix this then it'll never happen.

I'm not a diet expert, but I think these tips will be useful if you want to lose weight:

1) Eat 6 smaller meals instead of the typical 3: eating more regularly stimulates your metabolism and can reduce fat storage.
2) Avoid fast food style products; anything with too much saturated fat, and too much sugar.
3) Try and increase your protein intake - meat, fish, peanut butter, cottage cheese all are reasonably good sources of protein.
4) Most importantly of all, try and be aware of how many calories (roughly) you consume each day, and work to gradually reduce this amount. Even if the food you eat is healthy, too much of it will still result in excess calories which = fat.

Regarding your exercise, I think your friends advice is a good idea - it sounds like a HIIT style approach, which basically means doing high intensity cardio for short periods, then slowing right down, and repeat several times. This can burn just as many calories as doing a longer run at a steadier pace.

e.g. you could do a 2.5 mile run something like this:
500m steady (warm up)
500m very hard
500m steady (rest but keep running)
500m very hard
500m steady (rest to finish)

This sort of thing can be as effective as doing, say, a 4 mile run at a steady pace - it's certainly worth doing this every so often anyway. (variety is the key to good exercise).

I would also recommend doing more weight training - increasing your muscle mass will also increase your metabolism, so your body will burn more calories even when you aren't actually exercising. Don't worry about getting 'too big', as it's very difficult to get huge muscles without putting a LOT of effort into it.

Hope that helps.