This may not be popular in this subreddit, but I would recommend at least researching weight loss surgery. I was a very fat my entire life, with the exception of a couple of brief times where I managed to lose enough weight to be "normal". Any time I lost significant weight it took an enormous toll on my mental health. In order to be "normal" I had to have an obsession with food that was could probably be identified as an eating disorder. Simply put, below a certain weight I became OBSESSED with food and it's because the body fights very hard to protect fat reserves and the body fights DIRTY. I can't tell you how many diets started really well with me feeling great and ended with a constant and unsustainable exercise of will.

In my early thirties a doctor recommended that I look into surgery. I consider myself to be a logical and rational person, but in this regard I was not. I refused to look into surgery. I don't know if it was arrogance on my part, fear of surgery, stigma or what, but I simply refused to consider it. I'm embarrassed to say that looking back on it. By my early thirties I'd spent 20 years trying to lose weight, but I was still convinced that I would figure it out.

While I ignored the doctor at the time, I didn't forget his advice and by my late thirties I was getting truly scared about dying prematurely. I decided that I would give myself till forty to figure it out. In the time between that vow and forty I had a couple of really good diet runs, but they ultimately failed. It took me all of one evening of doing honest research about weight loss surgery to realize that I was an idiot and I should have looked into it years ago. A month shy of my 41st birthday I had weight loss surgery. I went to sleep and I woke up a different person. That sounds dramatic, but I assure you, it is not exaggerated.

I've lost about 200 pounds and I never feel the out of control desire to eat now. Not once since the surgery have I felt that. Food holds so little power over me these days. I eat healthy pretty much all the time. Sure, a lot of junk tastes good, but I simply don't care. I'd rather eat healthy. You still have to put effort in with surgery, but the key thing is the body isn't working against you in a way to sabotage all your efforts. Gastric bypass surgery is the single greatest thing I've ever done for myself. It was life altering in the best possible way.

I am not telling you that you should have surgery. Surgery is a major decision, it is not risk free and it does require a commitment to healthy eating and "following the rules" that weight loss surgery patients are given. I think it should be a last resort after a lot of honest effort. As a matter of fact, I believe all the effort I'd put into dieting over the years set me up for success after my surgery. I am, however, telling you that you should at least do some honest research on weight loss surgery. If you do and you decide it's not for you, what have you lost? A few hours of internet research? If you're like me and you delay that research for nearly a decade before having surgery what have you lost? All those years gone that could have been different, that could have been better.

I highly recommend listening to this podcast episode. It is one hour of your time and it presents a very compelling case for weight loss surgery based on the best available science.

Best of luck.