I've been overweight most of my life. My mom was a single parent and never really had great cooking skills and wasn't one to eat healthy, so that had a large part to do with my dietary habits.
Don't get me wrong, she gave me veggies and fruit, and i love a lot of it, even brussel sprouts (but not actual cabbage, strangely), but they took a back seat to cheap meat and quick sugary snacks growling up.
While my mom was also grossly overweight, we never had the mentality i read about here. We both knew we were fat, unhealthy, and overweight. I got bullied a lot in school for it.
As an adult in retail (GameStop, specifically), I'm in my feet all day. Only time I'm not moving is when I'm stuck at the register. Even then, I'm moving to get games from drawers and running to get controllers and game consoles in different parts of the store. I'm not adverse to moving my ass.
For my 2015 New Years resolution, i decided to start changing my bad food habits slowly. I am a creature of habit, so i knew if i tried everything at once, I'd quit it all together. So I started small.
I cut out sugary drinks almost entirely. Over the course of one year, i lost 30 lbs from choosing water over sprite, drinking sugar free Red Bull and grabbing Coke Zero or Diet Coke instead of a Coke when at a restaurant. At home, sweet tea made with sucralose with dinner. I also started walking to and from work most days. Normally at the end of the night in retail, I'd be calling for a ride home because I'd be beat. This got me used to taking walks of about a mile twice a day. When you're a lard ass, that's a big step.
Let me out this into perspective. I am 5'7". I went from 280 to 250 just by not drinking soda and energy drinks with sugar and walking to work.
Since I let myself get accustomed to not drinking sugar last year, this year i worked on my diet and portion control. Going over calories and serving sizes, my SO and I would make healthy lunches and dinners for the week on Sundays. Red meat and pasta was out. Chicken and zucchini noodles were in. We'd portion up our meals so they'd be enough to sustain us without going overboard. We'd then have cheat days on the weekends.
The first two months, i was hungry all the time. I wanted a burger so badly some days, i almost quit. But i didn't. I knew this was going to be good in the long run. So I got used to eating less.
We made a big move last month and have been trying to get settled in an entirely new city with an entirely new day-to-day life, so the healthy food has taken a back seat to convenience for a little while. Instead of home cooked meals for lunch, I'm eating 6" chicken or turkey sandwiches at Subway. Weekends, i might have a meatball sub. Still trying to exercise portion control. But now I'm walking 1.75 miles home (uphill half the way at that), but I'm at a steady weight. I'm fluctuating between 190 and 195 lbs.
This year, I've lost 60 lbs so far. Once we get back on track, i think I'll be able to hit 175!
So I've lost 1/3 of my body mass over the last two years. I'm not trying to get ripped, but more trying to lose the fat I've been gestating most of my life. Once i get my new schedule normalized, and the summer heat of the south lessens a bit, i plan on starting C25K. But, I'm making baby steps. I'm a creature of habit, after all.