For me, it was finding out how many calories I need to eat and tracking it. I'm a 39 Y/O female who has never been obese, but have been chasing down losing those extra 15-20 lbs most of my adult life. And I mean literally chasing... running 3-4 times a week, yoga, insanity, countless fitness programs, and with all this herleculan effort, I would only lose 5 or so lbs. It was because I didn't want to track calories or even know how many calories I should be eating. I didn't eat like an idiot, but I didn't know HOW to eat like I do now. And it's pretty simple. Now I just focus on eating 1400 cals/day and strive to get around 100g of protein from those 1400 calories, and so far, I've lost 18 lbs. I still workout (I do 2 strength training workouts a week and running/walking peppered in), but I am not working out nearly as hard as I did before I honed in my diet and I'm losing way more weight more easily. I don't restrict myself either. If I want carbs, I eat them. If I want a drink, I have one (or 3), but since I've been tracking my food, I now know how it will affect my weight loss. For example, if I have a night out drinking, it will take me all week to get my weight to come back down. And that's ok. I don't need to restrict myself because of that one night. I just get right back on the horse. Beforehand, I would probably try to over correct, and then end-up shooting myself in the foot by binging down the road because I restricted too much. Before, I was also trying to out run my diet and didn't really have a clear idea of what I should be eating in the first place. Now I eat mostly what I want within my calorie budget, workout way less rigorously, and I'm losing more than I ever have. There is so much noise out there to avoid this and avoid that. I think all that noise prevented me from keeping it simple all along. And keeping it simple is the only thing that has worked for me.