I'm going to keep this pretty short and sweet. I lost 50lbs by giving up sugar, eating real food and exercising. That is it!
Seems pretty easy but I know the giving up sugar thing is hard but for me it has to be cold turkey. First I read Sara Wilson's I quit sugar book and decided to do no sugar substitutes as well. Her site contains some great info. http://iquitsugar.com/ I felt sugar made me anxious (more anxious I should say) and often led to a stomach ache so I wanted to try life without and I really find it easy now.
Three hardest parts of quitting sugar.
One hard part is saying no to people who want to give you something sweet because they love you, they want to show you they care. I also don’t want others to feel bad that they are eating sugar so trying not to draw attention that I’m not having the birthday cake at work etc. but it gets easier.
Two is you have to read everything you buy. There is so much sugar in packaged food it's shocking. This also helped me decide to move to mostly real food (food that is not pre-packaged).
Three Diet Coke oh how I loved you. No more. I rarely drink anything but water because almost all packed drinks come with some form of sugar.. I'm sure this is saving me lots of money.
The other changes were easier to make than I thought. Wheat pasta, brown rice, wheat bread all are better than I thought they'd be. Eating more vegetables has gotten easier as I tried new recipes and just made them a priority. My Pinterest board of vegetable recipes, but also they don't have to be fancy, put them on a grill pan I add sautéed mushrooms and spinach to everything.
http://www.pinterest.com/gingergrowsup/eat-your-veggies/
I use the elliptical for exercise and look forward to it every day! I watch an episode of Clean House or Project Runway on my iPad while exercising and the time flies. When I started 15 minutes was difficult and now 50 minutes is no problem.
I have 40 more pounds to go to meet my goal but these changes are for life, this is not a diet. Improving my blood pressure and cholesterol, having more energy and being to fit into and buy clothes I love ... the decision is easy.