You do not need to be sure a woman is interested before asking her out. The point of asking is in part to gauge interest.

It's good that you lost weight. Being obese before was depressing as hell for me.

Lying works for things like this and don't let anyone tell you convince you otherwise. I'm not advocating spinning a web of lies about your entire life story (although I'm sure that can work if you do it right) but this is one thing that it is never, ever, ever in your benefit to be honest about. Your goal right now should be to get some experience in both dating and sex. Lying will stop you from possibly sabotaging potential opportunities.

Over the years I've known a guy IRL who told his potential first that he was a virgin beforehand only to get ghosted after the date. I have two close friends who wanted to be honest about their firsts and I literally begged them not to. They both did. The girls had some experience but not a lot. From what they tell me, neither even realized the truth afterward.

I wouldn't say 10-12% is that low at all. Again, I think you see this and are biased to see the 88-90% who aren't. 10-12% is low, not rare. It's like 30-40 million people. You made it seem as though it was some unheard of thing when you're just one of many possible late bloomers.

If you really don't care about a woman's partner count and statistically the majority of women have more experience than you yet are somewhat willing to accept yours, what does that tell you? That should be the key takeaway from this all.

Based on my survey I think you seem reasonably well-adjusted and fairly reasonable about most things. Honestly, I was expecting worse. Obviously still lose the weight. Being a 2-3 (assuming you aren't underestimating yourself like a lot of people do on the low end) does limit your options a lot but if you aren't picky, I think you just need to put yourself on the market, lie if it comes up, and take what you can get for now.

I find it a bit curious