The struggle with starting a healthy lifestyle

How to stop eating like you are trying to kill yourself before you have to think about retirement.

There are a lot of resources out there when you are looking to go on a 'diet'. You can read about fitness & nutrition until your eyes bleed... So information isn't an issue.
In my experience, the main reason people (me included) cant seem to stick to a diet and loose weight is carbohydrate addiction. When I say carbohydrate I'm referring to C6 H12 06. Basically any class of sugar. Sugar is addicting. In studies, it is compared to the addiction of Cocaine! (http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/researcher-sugar-addictive-cocaine-obesity-diabetes-cancer-heart-disease-article-1.1054419)

Sweets, Soda, Bread, Pasta, Potatoes, Ice Cream etc... all fall under the carbohydrate family and are broken down to sugar when you eat them. (So are vegetables and fruit, but I'll address those later).
So what does that mean? You need to treat it like an addiction. You will have withdraws, mood swings etc.
When you go on a diet but refuse to stop eating bread, pasta, and potatoes simply because you like them, you are shooting yourself in the foot. You can't break an addiction by continually relapsing every few days. That just isn't a reality.

I find it hard, really hard to not have bread. One way that I find helpful is to fill up on protein, veggies, and fiber. That will mitigate the blood glucose spikes after a meal and keep you satiated longer.

You will get ornery for the first few days while you re-train your body and brain to not rely on excessive amounts of sugar. But that passes.

With that in mind, I'm going to seriously try to break my addiction to sugar and get back into the best shape of my life! Wish me luck!