I know what you mean. I'm only about 20 pounds heavier than I'd like, but even that much causes problems. I also have the competing pressures from jobs and family obligations.

One thing I've found that helps lose weight: drink iced tea instead of soda with that lunchtime burger (my job means that I frequently end up at the local McWendyKing for lunch), order a single burger instead of the double burger, and skip the fries (or limit them to once or twice a week.) Try to eat their salads (though the sizes and dressings often mean they have as many calories as the combo meal they replace.) And remember: there are no perks to belonging to the clean-plate club. Just because the restaurant's smallest meal has mega-helpings doesn't mean you have to eat it all. (It would go bad before they could deliver it to those kids in India your mother told you would love to have it.) These things won't substitute for sound diet and exercise, but they help a little - and every little bit helps.

Also, as I recently learned, don't try to plan trips you'll keep cancelling. It's better to get out for one or two nights at the boring local park than to cancel a string of three-nighters at a really neat place. Getting out is the key - Colin Fletcher always said that the only good conditioning for backpacking was, well, backpacking. Harry Roberts said backpacking exists everywhere and is good everywhere - the spot just needs to be public and accessible. You're lucky - in southeast Ohio, you've got a lot of such places: Zaleski, Tar Hollow, and Shawnee leap to mind.

Good luck. I forgot these lessons over the last few years, and paid a price for it on a recent trip that I wasn't physically prepared for.