My name is Derrick, im 24, im 5'11' and i weigh about 285. There are several things involved in my weight loss. First of all I would like to say that personally, I do not think that I look that bad, but I also know that people can be really judgmental, I myself come from a southern overweight family, we eat, and we have family dinners etc, so its sorta hard to stay ON a diet full time. I really want to lose weight for myself, but I cannot say that being 100% true, because for a long time I have been happy with myself, but after recent happenings in my life, I decided to step it up, and do this thing. My son was born last year, me and his mother split up, and now, I have met a wonderful woman with a daughter of her on, and I just really want to be happy. Like I said, I am somewhat happy with myself, but it just always bothers me what other people think. Recently I quit drinking soda/sweet tea (normally 5-7 cans a day), which was very easy, Ive been doing this for 2 weeks, no weight loss but I didn't expect that right away. As of right now, I just want to knock fat off my belly and face and see how it goes. Right now I only wear a 38 in the waist, and xl shirt, really don't know how I way 285, but I do. I also have multiple sclerosis which will play a part in my excerise, and thats one of the reasons I want to start slow, face/upper body weight. This fat under my chin is bad, I cant stand it, and my man boobs! :P , any pointers would be appreciated .... thanks.

Well you've got a lot to learn. First going "on a diet" is one of the least effective ways to lose weight and keep it off. Diets are stupid. Thinking that you can "go on a diet" (which hopefully means eating the right portions of nutritious food) for a period of time to lose weight only to later resume your current ways of eating (which is making you overweight) is just senseless! The idea is to change the way you eat for good so you can be at a healthy weight and be healthy for good!

Second, I know you think you are "OK" or "somewhat happy" with your weight, but the truth is you're just not. If you were you would never post a "Help me" article on a weight loss forum. "Other people" is really YOU deep down... it's not what other people think about you that bothers you, they just reflect to you how you feel about yourself. This is very basic psychology and it's pretty easy to understand. If you want to go even deeper and even into the philosophical and/or spiritual realm, there's really no such thing as "other people," it's just a concept in your head. So face it and admit it to yourself you are NOT happy with your weight. The sooner you admit this, the sooner you'll get serious about making change.

What else? Hmm... Your decision to quit soda and sweet tea are perfect examples of improving the way you nourish yourself!!! Congrats! It's OK to have an occasional soda or sweet tea but just plain harmful to be doing it all the time! This will sound harsh but the whole "my family, blah, blah dinner makes it hard" thing is an EXCUSE. Many people lose sight of this, but the truth is there is a limit to the amount of food we can consume, when we exceed this limit we start storing fat. Understanding that we can't just eat all we want regardless of everything else is crucial. Having too much stored fat is just not healthy. It is abusive to the body to constantly overeat. There's use and then there's ab-use. We don't want to cross over to abuse. It's sabotaging. Why would you sabotage your body when it is literally your most precious possession? (And if you think about it hard enough, your only TRUE possession)

Last thing is you can't spot reduce, you can't decide where your weight comes off first, you just have to lose fat and it will come off where it wants to. It usually starts in the face, there's a usual pattern but there's no way to spot reduce.

Derrick, you are 24, it is the perfect age to get your act together for good and you can totally do this! Start by facing facts, educating yourself and most importantly DOING it!

All the best to you!

thanks for the quick response, and thanks for saying things that I couldn't say to myself. Anyways, I want to do this, I really do....and I'm not here to give myself excuses why I shouldn't, but walking/running/ exercising is not easy for me, my legs are in pain 1/2 the day, ive been on pain meds and muscle relaxers for over 2 years

Wanting to do it is great, REALLY wanting to do it (as you put it) is what it takes.

Exercise will improve your overall health, including your MS, I can tell you that for sure! I get that it's not easy and it hurts, but you have to find a way. Where there's a will there's a way... I'm sure this is the first time you hear that! Ha! I can tell you it's true for sure though.

There is such a thing as upper body cardio if you can't do it with your legs... and I'm sure if you REALLY, REALLY dug into it and use every resource possible you can do it!

That's it for me! Let's see what others have to say!