Gotta wake up sometime

[Shanemr]

     I'm Shane, I'm a 31 year old male living in Southern Louisiana surrounded by delicious food, rivers of booze, and a jungle of bad habits. My entire life I have been overweight, from baby pictures that look like a Staypuft mashmallow baby, to an overweight kid, and at 14 I was 240lbs. The fact that I liked video games and fantasy fiction novels more than football or, well, any sport didn't help much.

     Around that time in history my mother noticed I was depressed, cause, well you see as a yound teen I wanted to talk to young women, and when your pretty much obese, that doesn't go so well. I was taken to a diet clinic and put on a series of now illegal dietary drugs such as Profast and PhenPhen. These drugs work by pretty much eliminating all hunger cravings and causing you to feel full after the smallest of snacks. Needless to say after enough dizzy spells and nearly collapsing because I didn't eat, I made it down to 190 pounds at 17 years old, I even got a girlfriend! But, alas without having created any sort of lifestyle change this did not last long.

     Time to jump forward, I currently maintain my weight at around 195 Lbs. I am 5'10 and of average build. Now my "Friends" tell me I look good and I'm not fat, my brain, my eyes, and living in an area of affluent people who live in the gym tells me I am pudgy and out of shape. So needless to say in my entire life I have never felt fit, and I'm tired of it. I want confidence, I want to feel OK going somewhere without a shirt on, I want to feel sexy gosh darnit!

     I have started looking at and working on the Paleo lifestyle, I am working on a home calisthenics routine and aiming at 180 for a target weight. Dreams of a new wardrobe that isn't decided by what hides my belly the most (I have quite the collection of black and dark colored shirts) and so many other freedoms that while yes, many other men do not care about showing their beergut to the world, I do.

     So I am here trying to slowly get into where to begin and then apparently wait til the end of the month for the next challenge to start. And if I can save enough moolah, I want to treat myself to the NF camp in September as my to me Bday gift.

[Korvida]

Welcome to you!  Sounds like you're on the right track and I wish you good luck!  There are lots of good resources here and lots of experienced and passionate people to communicate with on your journey.  Take the time now to look at the challenge forum and check out how that works so that when you start your first challenge you have very clear goals in mind that you can work towards (this is just my suggestion because it was a lot for me to take in all at once and I got a little swept away by it at first lol).  You are already well on your way, you have your main quest sorted out and your motivation as well.  You will just need to come up with three "missions" that are specific and measurable that will help you "level up" so you can accomplish your main quest of getting strong, losing fat, and gaining confidence.  Sounds quite a bit like my quest!  Best of luck, see you in the challenge forums!