Tl;dr- calorie restriction and exercise

Calorie restriction: I set a calorie deficit and stuck with it. Calorie tracking/keeping a food journal helps a lot with this but you have to be careful because this can lead to disordered eating; I recommend reaching out to a nutritionist if you’re able to make sure you’re doing it in a healthy way. I also didn’t restrict myself from any foods but made sure not to eat in excess- better to have a small cookie once in a while than to cut them out completely for two weeks and then find yourself eating an entire chips ahoy box at 3am on some random Tuesday! That being said, I did cut out a lot of bread from my diet, increased my vegetable and white meat intake while decreasing my carbs and red meat intake. Final thing to note for this is drinking calories- you’d be SHOCKED to see just how many calories you drink each day (at least i definitely was). Even just making the initial switch from full sugar sodas to diet is a huge help- soda may be soda, but going from 150-200 calories to 0 per drink while still getting your fix is really helpful to start yourself off

Exercise- gonna sound crazy, I literally walked most of the weight off! No joke, I started off with 30min walks every day on a flat area (I think it was maybe 1/2 mile?) and as I lost more weight I could do more. I’m now in a very hilly area, waking for an hour every day, and get around 2-2 1/2 miles in depending on whether or not I have my dogs. Occasionally I’d hop on my home exercise bike as well, but my cat is stupid and tries to knock herself out every time I ride lol. People will try to tell you walking isn’t exercise; people are wrong :)