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You got to the "I'm done" point. That is going to help you. I got to that point last year. I have been overweight all my life. I was on a diet when I was 4. Through all the bullshit and problems of my life, food was always there. In high school i was 285. It was hell, and yet, I didn't change my habits.

As I got older I came down, went back up, came down, went back up. Finally last year I said I was done. I knew what to do and how to do it. I had all the tools. Just needed the will power. Since then, I've lost 60 pounds, and I'm now under 200 for the first time since probably middle school...and I'm almost 35. 

You can do this. It is going to be hard. If you ever need support or advice, send me a message. I could not have done it alone, because so much is there to tempt you all the time. You deserve this, Julien. Good luck!!!

Thanks! It's great to hear from people who have done it and are in the process of doing it. I definitely plan on making my weight loss journey part of my YouTube channel down the line. 

Please do! It actually feels good to talk about your journey, because it is hard and people like us usually do not talk enough about our struggles. If you ever want a guest, I'd be more than happy to join you.

My mum and dad worried about my weight most of my childhood and into my early 20's. Not because I was overweight, because I was a frikkin stick and could not gain weight. Well, about 25 that all went to hell. I went from 120 lbs to 230 or more (a guess because I won't go on the scales anymore). Not good for someone who is only 5 foot 10.

I decided to get back on the treadmill again late last year and have been keeping it up so far. I'm keeping an eye on my food intake but more importantly I'm burning over 400 cal. a day on the treadmill and doing my heart good too.

It's hard to keep it up though. You think, oh I exercised 4 times this week so I can do whatever I want now. Not true.

Keep on going. But fuck the diets, moderation is all you need. Advice that is easier to give than it is to follow. 

I've read a lot that it's 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. Makes a lot of sense. Wish it was more 50/50 so I could eat some ice cream more often 

I porked out over the last couple of years. I went from 135, which is the most I should ever weigh, to 165 when I weighed myself in August. I knew I needed to do something, because none of my uniforms fit anymore, and I couldn't walk to the top of the hill that park HQ is on without huffing and puffing. And then I got Beau, my new dog, at the end of September. He's pretty much still a puppy, so I have to go out and walk him every day. I started doing the Couch to 5K running program with him in early October, ran a week, and then I got sick and had to stop running for almost six weeks. I figured I'd have to start all over again, but I found out I was actually in better shape than before I started running. When I weighed myself at Thanksgiving, I'd lost 13 pounds and an inch from around my waist. Christmas Day saw another two pounds gone. And last week, I was able to fit into a pair of pants I haven't been able to button in over two years. And two weeks ago, I ran a 3.5 mile race on snowshoes in under an hour. That's the exercise end of things. On the food end of things, I'm being conscious of portion size, I cut soda and chips out of my diet for the most part. I do allow myself a soda or a bag of chips as a treat every once in a while, but I'd say it happens no more than once or twice a month. I also started eating my big meal during my break at work instead of coming home and cooking a big meal (or indulging in convenience food like frozen pizza) after 9PM. I do grab my dinner from the hot food bar at work, but it's high quality food made from scratch in our deli, and I'm probably eating more vegetables this way. And I keep my sweets intake to a minimum. My mom gave me a big bag of Lindt truffles for Christmas, and I've been rationing them - one a night, if I don't eat something else sweet.

I admire your willpower. That's my biggest problem. I'll go get bad food and literally be sitting in my apartment with the food in front of me thinking "why did I get this? I had food at home, and I don't really want this."

Will power is great when you're not exhausted from depression. That was kinda how i ended up needing to lose that weight. Beau has been really good for me, in addition to having to walk him every day, he's such a sweet little happy-go-lucky goofball that it's hard to be down with him around. He does things to make me laugh, usually when he knows he's in trouble.

You can do it, Julian! I never work out and I don't eat as well as I use to, but my problem has never been weight, but cardiovascular health instead. Ever since I was in elementary school till now I have a really tough time running or doing any kind of cardio to exercise my heart. Just this year my dad had to get a quadruple bypass surgery and he's recovering well, but they found out his heart has been underperforming since birth most likely, because there's a valve that pumped very weakly and two of the three flaps were actually grown together into one big inefficient flap. So the whole system didn't pump normally even under the best circumstances. I may have inherited some heart problems that I don't know yet, but in the meantime I still want to work on cardio. I have no interest in building muscle or being fast, although those might be a nice bonus, my sole purpose of turning around my exercise and diet will be for the heart

You should really get checked out if that's the case. Take it from someone who avoided doctors and now have complications that could have been addressed if I had taken care of them early. 

You might try yoga for cardio. The whole thing about DDP Yoga is getting an intense cardio workout with minimal strain on the body.

When I was about 218 lbs (I'm 5' 9 1/2"), what I did to get down to 165 over the course of a few months-year was keep calories below 2000 and walk 3 miles a day (took me an hour roughly). 

You just need to start slow and work up to where you want to be. If you try to run 5ks out of the gate, you will burn out early. Slow and steady wins the lifestyle change race.

Keeping carbs low also helps, especially since you need to watch sugar. But when dieting, don't go crazy with keeping track of EVERYTHING on that label, calories and whatever specific other item you need to focus on will keep things much more simple. 

Hope that helps. Also, I love boogie2988 on YouTube. 

Good luck on your weight loss journey, I know you can do it.

Thanks for the advice. I'd been walking for about an hour a day before the double whammy of my nearly 2 month long depression and getting sick, but I have yet to get back to it. And I enjoy exercise, but it's so easy to stay on the couch once I've been there for a while. 

I'll actually be talking about boogie in my blog today.

I'll have to read that. 

Yeah, walking/exercise is always suggested to alleviate depressive symptoms, but last year when I had Major Depressive Disorder, even walking didn't help. The fact it was cloudy outside for so long and I didn't have much human contact outside of students I thought hated me (some did, many it turns out didn't) also contributed.

Best of luck, Julian! I was overweight up until high school and then football and wrestling helped get me in shape. I lost ~15 lbs that first football season and then an additional 30 from wrestling, and I stayed around that weight all through college. I put some of it back on since getting married (I hear that's a common thing) but I've never gotten so bad as my pre-sports days.

I know your story well, Julian. Puberty did me no favors, along with somewhat typical teenage depression. I ballooned up in High School and hated that I was no longer the stick I was in my younger days. Senior year I finally got my shit together and started working out every other day and I got down to a solid 170... then college started and I gained 100 lbs. Soda, junk food, and repeat depression due to the challenges of school amongst a slew of other things just ruined me.

Before getting married I managed to drop 80 lbs. The doctor basically told me I was borderline for getting diabetes and that was enough to scare me into doing something about my habits. Since then I've managed to keep pretty consistent between 190 and 210. Primarily, I cut soda out of my diet and started eating simpler meals that were high in protein so I'd stay full and eat less. I also started running, which hasn't really done a tremendous amount for my weight, but generally speaking, just makes me feel better both physically and mentally.

Weight control is still something I feel like I struggle with every day and the pull to fall off routine just never seems to go away. It's really frustrating, so I know how you feel. Getting started is always the hardest part, but hopefully you can hit stride and get better. Best of luck to you man, I've got faith that you can do it!

I was skinny early, then fat in middle school, rail thin in high school, then I got a hypothyroid problem around 1997 (when I was 30) and put on 100lbs almost overnight; spent the next 20 years around that wieght (6' 3", 300lbs), then had some strange symptoms in 2013 that were diagnosed lyme disease, then carbon monoxide poisoning, then possibly prediabetic, all of which woke me up and forced me to change my diet and start more concentrated exercise. It's been a few years now and I've lost some weight and started to recover from the CM poisoning, but more's a needed. I'm thinking of going vegetarian or at least mostly vegetarian. I'm also trying to make all my own food both for health and cost. I've got two out of three meals down. Things have been slow, and the many mentions here of depression getting in the way has also been my problem. 

Good luck in your weight loss. It's a matter of finding the healthy lifestyle that you can live with. It's also about changing habits and tastes. I just started replacing pretzel snacks with vegetables. I feel I have to develop a taste for vegetables which I currently find bland and uninteresting.