leaving college and in my early 20's i was still in the low 170's, but over the years i steadily increased my girth until in my early 40's i had settled at about 190 lbs. then in about a year or two i remember balooning up to about 200 lbs. that's when i decided to get crazy and started bike riding a few 100 miles/ week or alternately hill climbing. there was a day i remember peddling up/ down Mount Soledad 3 times... the third time up the west side, a very steep climb.
even with all this exercise i only got down to the low 170's, but at the time thought that was the best i could have ever done. i didn't change my diet one bit during this time, though, so eventually when the biking stopped, the lbs started creeping back.
this time it is totally different. i've lost all the weight through understanding nutrition and with 3 joint replacements, i do very little exercise. the best part is that this time i don't have to keep up insane exercise... all i have to do is continue to eat properly. i have found my solution via intermittent fasting. this may not be a solution that works for everyone, but i cannot ignore the results it gave me.
so you could take the position that nothing seems to work and you could never lose that much. i have said this before and i will continue to admit, when i first began all i wanted to do was to get back to ~190, i didn't think 165 would be possible in any scenario i could imagine, yet, here i am.