Not sure where to go

Honestly, this really is your decision. I feel empathy because it seems like the tradeoffs you're facing are similar to a place I was at a few years back.

On one side of the possibilities, there's sticking with a comfortable, long-term routine that has short-term rewards of yummy food, enjoyable drinks, relaxation/distractions that are long-established ways to manage overall life stress . . . but that in the long run results in poorer health markers, physical challenges/discomfort, and probably higher odd of illness and early death after (probably) a long and fairly miserable decline into worse physical symptoms then fatal disease.

On the other side, there seems to be short-term unpleasantness: Less of the familiar yummy eating routine, cutting out or down on the seemingly mood-smoothing alcohol, overcoming current fitness limitations to move more (which can feel miserable and difficult in the moment), plus the annoyance and effort required to analyze and change long-term established easy-seeming habits.

Change is inherently disruptive, inherently hard. The expectation is long-term improvement, being healthier, feeling better, and living longer with better quality of life as well . . . but man, it seems really distant and honestly kind of unreal or theoretical.

Why give up all the obvious short term goodness to get long term theoretical benefits?

That's the personal question. Only you can decide what you want most. Only you can decide what short-run comfort or pleasure you can set aside in the hope of long-term improvements. We can maybe give you "how to do it" ideas, but if the question is still "whether to do it", we can't give you that. The closest we can get is "why we did it", assuming we did.

This is a thing I waded through myself, as an undisciplined, aging-hippie, hedonistic kind of person. If I knew what finally flipped the switch in my head, I'd bottle and sell it, make millions. But finally it did flip. Thankfully it did flip: That's my profoundly felt opinion for me.

Make pros and cons list, maybe. Decide.

For me, I discovered through trial and error - experiments, not all successful - that there was a better balance available when I truly committed to finding it: An enjoyable way of eating that was still calorie-appropriate, ways to reduce stress, ways to socialize happily, ways to have fun through more movement . . . and voilà, long term better health and fitness, and much better overall quality of life.

YMMV, because it's your mileage, your decision.

P.S. You were making good progress - really good progress - for a while there toward your long term goals. What changed? It feels like it was your mindset. This is my bias: The most powerful levers for making change in my life are the factors I personally control. I control my mindset . . . or can control it, even if I need some help sometimes in finding the reins and driving in a positive direction.

You managed to lose a decent amount of weight, so you know you can do it. But you have to want to. We can offer all the advice in the world, but only you can take it on board and do something to change your situation. Whilst you get your head back into that way of thinking and start pushing away all the negativity and defeatist attitude, knowing that you have succeeded before and can do so again, perhaps consider just eating smaller portions of your regular meals. At least you know you like the food.

You mention burgers, meatballs, meatloaf and sausages but I don't see much mention of vegetables or anything that has fibre. No fruit? No seeds? No nuts?

Reading what you eat vs what I eat made me smile, as some of what you're describing is me about 10 years ago. All of my changes were gradual, but I can't imagine going back to my old diet…

bare meat and some vegetables was not lasting - I typically eat plain meat and a plateful of vegetables; this evening I had a pork loin steak with mushrooms & onion (sauted in 10g butter), 200g sauted cabbage and some peas. Total calories for the entire meal was under 600. The mushrooms and onions gave each bite some flavour. If I'm having a steak, I'll again have mushrooms, onion and peas but often won't bother with the cabbage although I may cut a tomato in two and grill it. With tasty veg on the side, the meal doesn't have to be boring and bland.

Plain Burgers with no bun - it's the only way I eat burgers now, but I'd have a lot of salad stuff with it (and no fries). How about just having half a bun and ditch the top half?

cold cuts without bread - why not have cold cuts with a mound of salad? what sort of bread do you eat?and how much?

zero pasta, no starchy vegetables - I pretty much cut out rice, pasta, potatoes and bread a few years ago, unless I'm eating out, and load my plate with veg instead as I can fill myself up on fewer calories that way and simultaneously consume more fibre.

meatballs and meatloaf without breadcrumbs (just not good) - I'm in the UK and don't know what meatloaf is (I'm guessing you're not referring to the now-deceased rock singer), so can only go by a picture from a quick Google search, but are there really that many breadcrumbs in that it'd make that much difference if you had this with a plate of filling veg? Do you make your own tomato sauce for the meatballs?

grilled chicken (cardboard) - I've never eaten cardboard chicken. Grilling chicken successfully is difficult unless it's a universal thickness, so I almost always bake it (in a dish surrounded by sliced onion, quartered tomato pieces, courgette chunks, sprinkled with oregano, garlic and a little balsamic vinegar plus some spritzes of low-cal oil = approx 360 cals). It takes approx 30 mins at 190 degrees and the tomato juices, garlic and vinegar help keep the chicken moist. Served on a bed of cabbage that's under 500 cals for the entire meal.

salads with tons of zero carb (high calorie and fat) dressings - I don't eat most dressings anyway, as I don't really like them, but a small amount of infused oil goes a long way. Experiment.

occasional steak, eggs, cheese, pickles, sausage - I eat steak every few weeks and eggs & cheese daily - but I'm within my calories each day. Consider pre-logging so you can see how your planned meals will affect your calories, before you start eating.

You clearly like minced meat - how about making a bolognese or a chill and bulking it out with veg and lentils? That can be frozen in portion sizes, taken out of the freezer in the morning and will re-heat without issue. If you have a slow cooker, you can prep the night before (even with the TV on in the background), throw everything into the slow cooker in the morning and leave it simmering away all day. You don't like eating cooked chicken the next day as it's dried out - why not chop it up and toss it into a home-made vegetable mix. Saute chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, chopped onion, courgette (zucchini) and a pinch of chilli or herbs and/or garlic for some flavour then add the chicken to properly heat it through. That sauce can also be batch cooked and frozen. How about stirfries with lots of vegetables? You can use chicken, beef, prawns etc - just get them out of the freezer in the morning and they'll be defrosted by the time you get home. A splash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of Thai / Chinese spices would liven it up without adding a huge amount of calories and that'll also reheat well. It probably takes less than 20 mins to prep and cook.

When I started, I began with reducing my portions but carried on eating the same foods. And logged everything. Then I looked at what was calorie dense and hunted for substitutes. I've forgotten what you called your zucchini alternative to pasta, but I tried courgetti and soon gave up as it's pretty grim. Instead, I'd have a much smaller portion of pasta (but I started using wholewheat pasta) and bulked it out with chopped courgette and other veg for volume instead. Now I rarely even do that and just have a plate of sauted cabbage as my base to almost everything. Sure the cabbage takes time to finely cut and then takes 20+ mins to saute, but I make a large panful that'll do three meals. It reheats just fine and works with pretty much everything I ever make.

I went lowish carb because I had to - a diabetes T2 diagnosis forced me to face reality. I was determined that I wasn't going on medication and to reverse the blood sugar levels via diet meant actually changing my diet. However, I haven't cut carbs out completely and nor have I tried but, per something I eventually found on the Diabetes UK site, I stay under 130g of carbs a day. Vegetables and salads fill me up and are lower in both carbs and calories than a similar pile of rice, pasta etc.; they're also higher in fibre. I started with gradually reducing the rice etc and increasing the veg, rather than shocking my system by trying too much at once.

With logging, some things are a best effort, but you can make that effort if you want to. You know the sort of things you're having from the deli when you order your lunch at work, so look at equivalents in the supermarket and at home to make an educated guess as to how much each element weighs. Overestimate a little. Will that be a perfect match for the ingredients the deli uses? No. Will it be better than just shrugging your shoulders and saying "I don't know, this is too hard to work out"? Yes. I eat out multiple times a week and very few places in the UK give nutritional info on their menu so it's very much a best effort basis - but practice makes perfect (or something close), so I can take a good guess as to how much chicken was used, how much lettuce, how heavy that jacket potato probably is etc. That didn't all happen on day 1.

Where do you want to be in 6 months? Looking back and thinking "wow, I weigh less than I did in August" or still sitting there, eating the same foods and saying "I can only eat burgers, chips, meatloaf and salad with loads of calorie dense dressing" and weighing the same as you do now or more?

The only person who can actually do this for you is you.