I hired a coach/trainer.

Yeah, man, okay. I was working as an overseas contractor for the DOD back in the day. I ended up stuck on this base where we were not allowed to leave, and I just put my head down and did my job. I also took every opportunity to get extra food and cheesecake from the galley. Turns out, six months of doing that will turn you into a fat fuck, and it hit me when I went home to visit and was too fat for a zip line ride.

So it happens, man, and before that, I was in fantastic shape.

So here’s what you’ve got to do. It’s all a numbers game. At first, you can get away with cutting liquid calories, eating smaller portions, and starting to get some exercise, but you will eventually hit a plateau.

Now you’ve really got to dial it in. Start with something like a step counter. I like the Apple Watch; it’s easy and works with my phone. It will also calculate your BMR plus give you your daily calorie expenditure on top of that, so you have a pretty good estimate of how many calories are going out.

Next, you’ve got to figure out what’s coming in. I like Cronometer as far as apps go. You can buy it for a year, but honestly, my tip for losing weight is making things easy, so use the free version and track your meals for at least two weeks.

Because I like easy, I’ll eat the same five to six meals every day. That way, I know exactly how many calories I’m getting without logging everything after every meal like a psychopath. After two weeks, your menu kind of falls into a groove. If I plateau, I may go from six meals to five as an easy way to create a deficit or just recalculate portions.

It’s all about a calorie deficit, and I try not to go more than like 500 calories deep into the rabbit hole max, or else your performance in the gym turns to shit. I also like to rotate low to high carb days just to encourage better insulin sensitivity and generally just stick to whole foods.

Be patient and don’t go crazy cutting calories.

Stop HOLD UP !!! Before Adding calories
Start by being honest with us and yourself
Are you doing 10,000 steps aday ( get a tracker )
Post your diet HERE. Exactly what foods you eat and when. Not just calories. If your serious about losing fat you will know exactly what your daily food is.
STAND NAKED IN THE MIRROR - what do you see -
If your unhappy then FIX IT. Its your journey make it a GOOD ONE

There's nothing wrong with taking a weekend, or even a week, to bump calories back up a bit to give yourself a break. Then drop back down to your calorie deficit. I find the mental ordeal of the whole thing to be worse than the actual diet/cardio. Taking small breaks can make the mental drain more manageable.

Keep your goals in sight, you have to want it more than anything. Take it day by day instead of looking at it as a whole, it makes it much simpler and less stressful. Every day you wake up you have to accept the challenge and attack it with everything you have, if you can’t, you don’t want it that badly to start. Hard work and determination will always win in the end. Believe in yourself!!

Consistency! It takes time to do it right. If you are going to keep it off then it has to be a lifestyle change in diet and exercise. Take a picture now and then do like Bill said below. Take another pic every 3 months. If you stay consistent you will be a different person within a year.

Sometimes you need a mental break from the diet. Up your calories to maintenance level for about a week. Then back to the grind of calorie deficit, cardio, and lifting hard enough that your body preserves the muscle tissue you have. If you’re having trouble sticking to the exercise routine then you need to reevaluate if this is really what you want. If you love to exercise, then hungry/tired should make no difference. I’ll get withdrawal-like symptoms skipping workouts, so you can guess that it very rarely happens

No soda or sweets. No junk food at all. Then exercise.

Eat less, work-out more.