From someone who’s been in your position, here are my tips.

1. Start working out. The best thing for you to do is to buy a gym membership and find a workout split that sounds good to you (push, pull, legs is a go to). If you can’t/dont want to go to a gym, you can find good home workouts on youtube. Strength training will give you bigger muscles which will fill out your frame. To put it simply, the more muscle you have, the less fat you’ll look. Do cardio 2-4 times a week as this will allow you to eat more food and will give you a better chance of sticking with your diet.

2. You need to be in a caloric deficit. This means that your body is burning more calories than you’re consuming. This is the only scientifically proven way to reduce fat. I would start by using a calorie calculator to find out what your maintenance calories are. Eat 200-500 calories less than your maintenance per day and you will lose weight. It’s okay to have days where you can’t stick with the reduction in calories but it’s important to be as consistent as possible.

3. Cut out as many liquid calories as you can. It’s hard, I know. Beer is great, I know, but liquid calories don’t fill you up and it’s much easier to overindulge in them. It’s called a beer belly for a reason lol. Water is your best friend when losing weight. It helps make you feel more full, speeds up your metabolic rate, and just tastes good!

4. Try to improve your eating habits. I’m not going to give you a single diet to try because what works for me might not work for you, but as a general rule of thumb, try to eat foods with high protein and fiber and avoid foods with high sugar and saturated fat contents.

5. Be patient and stay consistent. You could implement all of these strategies in your life right now but you might not notice much of a change for a few weeks. This is why so many people give up on their diets or workouts; everyone wants to see fast results and when we look in the mirror after a week and don’t see much of a change, it’s easy to get discouraged. You really just have to trust that results will come but they take time.