It would be good to read how you all achieved these losses.
My method was boringly obvious - I started to look at the contents of the things I ate and drank and stopped eating and drinking things that had very high percentages of sugar and/or fat, especially saturated fat.
Weighed in at ~103Kg, which had gradually crept on over years. Had a whole slew of tests for an unrelated medical issue, which uncovered an underlying metabolic problem that increases my risk of various health problems. Liver disease, heart disease, diabtetes, stuff like that. And, as an added "hahaha, up yours", obesity. Which further increases all the risks. A bit of luck, really, as people with this problem don't normally find out until it's caused health problems. I've got some minor, reversible, liver trouble. No treatment, but the condition can be managed by being fitter than average. Do that and I'll have a normal life expectancy. Don't do that and I'll be at increased risk of various things that would reduce my quality of life and kill me. The consultant advised that a gradual loss of weight and increase in fitness would be a good thing. No need to go mad about it, this is a lifelong thing. Ease the weight down at a reasonable rate, over a year, 18 months...no rushing at it.
So...bit of a wake-up call there.
I was down to 89Kg last time I checked, mostly from switching from biscuits to Ryvita and from ordinary pop to diet or weak squash (flavoured tap water, basically).
Take a look at the nutritional info on biscuits (FAT!) and normal pop (SUGAR!), it's a real eye-opener. Oh, and fruit snack bars. Fruit. Healthy, right? No, not really. You can get less sugar in chocolate.
I roughly go with this:
When I'm shopping, I read the labels and don't buy anything with much fat, sugar and especially saturated fat. If there's a couple of things I fancy, I buy the one with less fat in it.
That simple, that casual.
I'm not really bothered about weight, since that's not directly relevant to anything I care about. What I'm bothered about is health. Weight is simply an easy to measure rough guide to health. I don't have a weight goal and I don't weigh myself much. I go on how loose my trousers have become (had to buy belts, really need new trousers) and how I feel. Massive improvement there, due to better heart function. I run home from work sometimes now, because I can. A hundred yards sloppy jogging would have seen me gasping and sweating before. A mile or so brisk running is needed for the same effect now. Maybe in a year it'll take 5 miles. Or 10.
Just a simple, casual start and you'll benefit. It's not about weight per se. That's just a very rough correlation that's easily measured. It's about fitness and it's mainly about your heart. It's startling how much difference I've noticed from simple, casual changes. No dieting, which people do for weeks, hate it and can't wait to stop. Changes in eating habits, and it's really as simple as reading labels and thinking "OK, I like this stuff, but not much more than I like that stuff, which has half the fat and a third of the saturated fat. I'll eat that stuff instead."
I don't do moderacy well, so eating less of the higher-fat stuff wasn't going to work for me. Implementing moderacy indirectly by substituting one thing for another works much better for me.
This is probably the most relevant difference to me, as my main dietary flaw was biscuits:
Hobnobs:
21.7% fat overall.
9.8% saturated fat.
Ryvita (plain)
1.7% fat overall.
0.3% saturated fat.
Are Hobnobs nicer? Yes.
That much nicer? No. After a little while, I started to rather like the taste of Ryvita anyway.
Your sense of taste adjusts. Week 1: Coke tastes good, diet coke is spew! Week 2, diet coke is tolerable. Week 3, diet coke is OK. Week 4, diet coke is pretty good...try some normal coke again, for comparison... normal coke is spew!
Have 2 sugar in your tea? Put 1 in instead. It'll taste wrong for a little while, but give it a week or two and it'll taste right.
It's about little things you can change permanently without them bothering you.
