Can't keep living like this - need advice from former fats

Confession time. Maybe as self-humiliation, maybe as a way to make my thoughts feel more concrete and not just put a lid on them in a day or a week and go back to impulsive gluttony. Think I've alluded to this before, but here goes. No joke, I am probably the fattest person who posts on this sub. So fat that I don't know my weight thanks to the scales I tried the other day not showing it, but I know what I weigh above and that weight would utterly horrify any of the skinny BPD ladies who post here. I've struggled with my weight my entire life, the only time I think I've managed to lose weight was when I was a teenager and wanted to get fit to get attention from the girls at my high school (and even then, I was still overweight - for clarification I think the lightest I've been since like the age of 14 is 90, maybe 95kg. As a slight cope, I am about 1.9m tall so that wasn't too far off a healthy weight, and hey, I did get a bit of positive attention for a time even if I squandered it by being an autist who couldn't outright ask those girls out for a date, self-friendzoned myself and ended up retreating to the comfort of playing CS with the boys and ignoring homework instead).

Anyway. On top of that confirmation of realising I had hit an absurdly high weight class, I went for a walk today to start getting my new shoes to break in and realised, to my utter embarrassment, I got winded from a 20 minute walk on flat cement. Not good! I'm sick of the constant discomfort. This is what you don't really realise until you get super fat. How much of an effort it becomes for even what should be simple as tasks. Basic exercise like I mentioned. Showering. Going to the toilet. I haven't had a truly good night's sleep in maybe three years now. I know going off my family that I snore heavily and stop breathing a concerning amount of times. I can sleep for 10 hours and still wake up groggy and disorientated. I'm pretty sure it's actively rotting my brain in a way - I genuinely feel dumber than I used to. Constant sleep deprivation can't be good for you after all.

So I've had enough. Going to start consistent exercise again, starting from tomorrow, even if it's small steps; 20 minute walk in the morning and at night. Curtail myself off all the drink that I can inhale and not realise is there. Swap it out for zero sugar stuff and then hopefully one day get rid of it altogether, try and stick to just water and juice as the consistent choice (and to be fair I do drink a lot of water now, it's just interspersed with the crap like Coke, and that's honestly probably 60% of the reason I'm so goddamn fat, is just 10 years of drinking this shit in larger quantities). Get to a point where I'm comfortable just moving around again and then see about joining my cousins at the gym. I don't want to be the white Big Pun (or Stav). I don't want to feel uncomfortable by my sheer existence. I don't want to feel embarrassed to go out in public, to feel like I'm taking up everybody's space. I don't want to die at 35 from a heart attack just when I'm getting somewhere in life. I don't know if I want a family, but I do want to not have to worry about my parents burying me instead of the other way round.

So, to those former fatties who have moved on with their lives. What helped you stay on the wagon? What helped you with portion control, or even just getting away from unhealthy food? Do you think it's better to focus on just pure weight loss or give up a bit of that for muscle buildup? Do you have any recipe recommendations for stuff that I can either whip up quickly or prepare in bulk and manage to balance taste and health at the same time? Anything you can contribute would be greatly appreciated.