My struggles in finding a girlfriend

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1. I am overweight and my body refuses to respond to exercise. I went to a gym from 2009 through 2014 but I still have a chubby belly, a double chin, fat breast tissue, love handles, and my buttocks are flabby. Oddly, my forearms are thin for a male. I was told constantly by the culture I live in as well as my family that women only liked men with muscle and I tried to achieve that but I failed to do so. I am pre-diabetic and that doesn't help things at all.

2. I have a soft voice and it's hard for me to project it because no one ever taught me how to use my diaphragm so it's underdeveloped. I've tried to speak louder but it dries out my voice and makes me cough like crazy. I also can't keep people's attention no matter how hard I try to make what I say sound interesting.

3. I have thinning frontal hair and I've been told it ages my appearance. But even before the thinning, I was invisible to the opposite sex.

4. I don't have the typical male interests of the culture I live in. I don't like football, I don't fanboy over cars or guns, I can't stand either pop country or rap music, and I don't call myself a Christian for the sake of it.

5. I work only part time, I don't have a college degree, and my family squandered my potential in possible special abilities.

6. My family in general has ruined me. They didn't encourage me to improve my social skills and shot down my attempts to socialize.

Mark I'm sorry for what you are going through. I'm sure you are very depressed about yourself and upset at the world around you. I'm not laughing at you just to make that clear okay. Look at this guy who is overweight and who plays a lot of video games. I'm sure he lives in a rural area like you: https://www.youtube.com/user/boogie2988

In the face of adversity, you have to smile and bear through it all. You're looked at as tough for doing it and not weak. That is how I cope with my depression and that is how my friends do it as well. My brother who is very popular and who has had a lot of girlfriends did this too.

80% of weight loss is diet. I’d focus on that.

It’s not easy though. Especially if you do t live a lone and people throw off your diet.

I am not anywhere near as fat as Boogie and I don't live in the country but neither does Boogie as far as I know. I weigh about 230 or so pounds last time I got my weight checked.

I definitely need to eat better, though. I suffer from neuropathy in my feet due to being pre-diabetic.

When you were exercising, what exercises did you do? How often did you exercise and how long would you spend at the gym per session? What was your diet like at the time? If your body wasn't responding to what you were doing, why did you continue with it for 5 years?
Did you weigh in regularly to see how you were progressing?

The fact of the matter is you WILL lose weight if you're burning more calories than you're consuming, so you must not have been doing that when you were exercising. I very much doubt that your body is completely unreceptive to exercise. I can't see how that would even be possible.

If you really get no different results from eating healthy and exercising than you would from eating junk and lazing around, it might be worth seeking advice from a doctor/nutritionist/fitness professional, becase that makes no sense.

Cut down on carbs!
Cut down on carbs!
Cut down on carbs!
ALL carbs. Yes, including the ones that are supposed to be good for you.
The reason it's so hard for people to lose weight is because the body NEVER burns fat so long as there's plenty of sugar in the blood, muscles, and liver.
Only when available sugar starts to get very low does your body even consider burning fat.
Switch to a diet consisting mostly of meat and fat (yes, ironically enough).
Also if your pre diabetic then you should probably be doing this regardless of your social aims.

If you want to know more google 'Atkins diet' and 'ketogenic diet'.

Check your Testosterone level.

Low T causes depression and weight gain.

Weight training can raise T levels.

I completely disagree. The science is clear on this, you won't get a metabolic advantage from a ketogenic diet.
However, in regards to being pre diabetic, going ketogenic can be a smart move, so it might make sense for OP to do so.

The reason people struggle to lose weight, is because they either don't monitor their calorie intake, or suck at doing it. Alot of people think just by exercising or eating "healthy" they will lose weight regardless of how much they eat.

I did mostly elliptical and machine weights. The elliptical I would go for 30 minutes and the machines a variable number of sets. I would stay at the gym for an hour or a little more but looking back, it was mostly because my energy level would get sapped easily. I was very sedentary growing up and didn't play sports so my energy level is low by default. I would feel warm and sweaty after the elliptical and I would do a few machines but my energy level would be so low that I would then sit around before trying again but even then I wouldn't do much. Admittedly, I didn't really change my diet as I still ate junk and fast food. I stuck with it mainly because it became routine even though I was becoming to abhor it more and more. My family, especially my mother and younger brother, pushed me to keep going and I guess I thought it would come off as attractive to women that I was atleast putting myself in the gym. I sometimes weighed myself but it wouldn't stay in my mind.

That gym actually closed down near the middle of 2014 but starting that year, my mother and her ex-husband hired a trainer to work with me. Unfortunately, she was not helpful. She shoved her religious beliefs down my throat, didn't do anything very different than what I was already doing besides some free weight exercises, and made me keep running on a treadmill despite having neuropathy building up in my feet. For a long time, I would feel the burning sensation from the neuropathy without knowing exactly what it was.

That's probably why you didn't get the results you wanted. I don't know exactly what your diet consists of, but if you were exercising and not getting results, you were probably still consuming more calories than you were burning. I wouldn't rule out the effectiveness of exercise if you haven't tried accompanying it with healthier food choices.

In 2013, in an attempt to lose weight, I tried to stick to consuming 1000 calories a day. I wasn't always successful, but over the course of 10 weeks, I ended up losing 15kg (about 33lb) and that was without exercise, though I've since put some of it back on.

Diet is much more important than exercise. If your goal is to lose weight, you can do it by dieting and not exercising, but not as successfully vice-versa if you're still stuffing your face with junk food. Of course the combination of diet and exercise will get you shedding the weight faster than either on its own.

The food I eat the most of is Tex-Mex and Thai food. Both are very spicy and full of flavor so my brain is hooked on them. I have a habit of clearing off my entire plate and eating too fast so I stuff myself with other things even if I've eaten a whole plate. Stuffing myself is partly how I became pre-diabetic.

My emotions are usually low throughout the day. I feel like I am living a life where I am not the one writing my story but someone else is and it isn't in my favor. I've suffered so much and wonder where the break is. I see romance and sex all around me but my invitation to join in got lost in the mail. My spirit craves love and warmth but I can't reach for them.

I’ve heard worse advice. You are fundamentally correct. Ketogenic is not a bad way to go.

I have some experience with this. I’ve completed 2 water fasts, so I’m well aware of ketosis and its effects. My experiences were mostly positive, and I’m in better health now than any other time of my life.

Having said that, you have to be extremely careful. Unless you know you can pull off a water fast, and for me it was more a spiritual exercise, take it down to, like, 2 weeks. Reintroduce food sloooooowly, and consider going vegetarian. You’ll get just what you need, you’ll cut the carbs, and you’ll avoid the unhealthy fats you get with Atkins and ketogenic diets.

If you’re pre-diabetic, I don’t think high-fat meats are the way to go. The reason why is that means you’re consuming a lot of red meat, which is high in iron. Iron overload is murder on your pancreas and will throw you into full-blown diabetes. Go with beans and spinach followed up with a glass of orange juice for the vitamin C to better absorb iron. Occasionally do chicken liver with bell peppers for the same thing. Or fish. Go easy on it and you’ll be ok. And try to regularly donate blood to keep iron regulated.

I regularly give blood components, and my iron was too low at one point this year. So I was obsessively eating dirty rice made with liver, bell peppers, pinto beans, and occasionally something with hamburger meat. For breakfast I’d do omelets with bell peppers, onions, and spinach. The last time I donated my hemoglobin was well over what it needed to be. But I make sure I only do the least bit necessary. Diabetes runs in my family.

At my heaviest, I weighed 235. I’m now between 165 and 175 depending on water consumption. I’m still a beginner weight lifter (just dumbbells working chest muscles), I hit the arc trainer for 45-50 minutes and keep my heart rate between 160-180 bpm, I walk a slow, leisurely mile after intense workouts, and after work I train for my first 10k coming up in about 4 weeks. Just this past Saturday I ran a 5k in just under 25 min., beating my previous best time of about 33 min.

I’m not going to lie. Restricting my diet SUCKS. Lifting weights and increasing my cardio is painful. Running races and sucking dry, cold air freakin HURTS.

But...

All my weight gain is muscle and water retention.

I can live with that.

I know it sucks to have to punish yourself to achieve those kinds of goals. I beat my best time this weekend and my legs and my lungs are still punishing me for it. And that’s ok. It’s just weakness leaving my body.

And unfortunately, the sad fact is you can’t know what I know until you experience it for yourself. It CAN be done. You’ll feel so much better, too.

Something I think that might be helping me is that weight lifting stimulates testosterone release, which I think has enhanced my training in other areas and made it more satisfying and a little bit easier. I’d start with getting cardio up, and once you feel ok with running, start lifting.

I understand. It isn’t easy. But it really makes more of a difference than exercise alone.

In my understanding, Ketogenic diet is a strict temporary medical diet specific for certain medical conditions - in other term, it's a diet they do to patients in hospitals to treat or ease certain conditions and it's under constant supervision of a pro doctor.

It should not be a diet to do permanently at home on your own especially if you are not specialized in the field yourself; it may be dangerous for long term.