You can do a lot with small changes to your diet, especially if you excercise. I dropped from 245ish to about 205 over one year just be snacking smarter (fruit and lower-fat items), cutting down on fried food (deli sandwitch and baked lays for lunch, rather than burger and fries), upping the veggies, and excercising a bit. That first summer, I never went more than 10 miles on the bike - 1/2 hour to 45 minutes on a hybrid. I also quit drinking about the same time (previous fall actually) which had to help on the calory intake, but to be honest I didn't notice much weight loss until I made those diet changes.