When it all comes down to it. The best way to lose weight is to put out more than you're putting in. No secret to it. Balanced foods and exercise. It really is that simple but people make it more complicated than it needs to be.
That right there is true. It is as simple as counting money, with the object of breaking even or losing a few dollars a day rather than turning a profit.
Figure out how many calories you burn each day on average and set your diet to provide fewer calories each day on average, if you simply take in 50 calories each day less than you burn you will end up losing pounds. OTOH, a profit as small as 50 calories a day will end up in pounds gained.
Calories used will vary with activity and with initial weight as shown here
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet...inutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activitiesif your over 55 you cant'!
I'm 70 and have lost about 36# since the new year with out really increasing activity or going hungry. I did hit a sort of plateau over the last three months but am still down ~3.5# from March, think at this point I'll need to increase activity a little.
My VA nutritionist insists on a full plate three times a day and is OK with two or three snacks per day. She actually encouraged me to add carbs up to a desired level. I am taking in about a third more volume with about a third less calories and haven't weighed or measured anything.
She has agreed that fly fishing is suitable exercise, which influences my wife to grip less about that.
I figure that if any of you is serious about losing 40-50# and keeping it off you need a lifestyle change more than a "diet", you probably should do many things, see a nutritionist, cut salt, cut sugar, cut white bread, eat green beans and cabbage, cut most fats, eat more green beans and cabbage, cut starches, find some pleasant activity other than sitting or lying down etc. and so on.
Important about cutting salt is that it builds a craving that is attached to more and more unhealthy foods, you probably don't even like chips but eat them for the salt. White bread not only stacks up calories, for me at least it increases my hunger threefold, guess that's true of any sugar.