What initially worked for me was the 5:2 "diet". Eat for 5 days fast for 2, and i followed it for a couple of years, and in the first 3 months i lost 15kg. After that things kinda "flattened" out, i still stuck to it, but eventually i caved.
With 5:2 i would be miserable on fast days. The lack of food didn't bother me, but concentration, feeling cold, and trying to fit into a world that eats dinner at nights eventually got too much.
These days i'm more or less doing the sunrise-sunset routine, which seems more natural to me. I've never been a big breakfast person, and for most of my life i've skipped breakfast. The only thing i've added is skipping lunch, which is also easy in the "work from home" world we currently live in.
My family and i also have different rituals in the morning, so we're usually not up at the same time anyway. So i eat a normal size dinner with the family in the evening, and my "social life" is mostly intact while at the same time cutting calories by 1/4 or more.
The thing is, when you're used to "overeating" you're hungry all the time. Stuffing less food in your stomach causes it to shrink, meaning you'll feel full earlier, so contrary to what many people believe, you don't just consume a full days worth of calories in the evening (assuming you're not eating at McDonalds, which makes it very easy to consume 2500 kcal in one sitting).
In the end, calories is all that matters in weight loss. The less you eat the skinnier you get. There are healthy and unhealthy ways of doing calorie restriction, but if you eat less than your body consumes, you lose weight.
Edit: I should add that another thing i changed was that i'm not "religious" about it. If somebody invites me out for dinner, or the family just gathers for dinner during the weekend, i eat.
These days i'm more or less doing the sunrise-sunset routine, which seems more natural to me. I've never been a big breakfast person, and for most of my life i've skipped breakfast. The only thing i've added is skipping lunch, which is also easy in the "work from home" world we currently live in.
My family and i also have different rituals in the morning, so we're usually not up at the same time anyway. So i eat a normal size dinner with the family in the evening, and my "social life" is mostly intact while at the same time cutting calories by 1/4 or more.
The thing is, when you're used to "overeating" you're hungry all the time. Stuffing less food in your stomach causes it to shrink, meaning you'll feel full earlier, so contrary to what many people believe, you don't just consume a full days worth of calories in the evening (assuming you're not eating at McDonalds, which makes it very easy to consume 2500 kcal in one sitting).
In the end, calories is all that matters in weight loss. The less you eat the skinnier you get. There are healthy and unhealthy ways of doing calorie restriction, but if you eat less than your body consumes, you lose weight.
Edit: I should add that another thing i changed was that i'm not "religious" about it. If somebody invites me out for dinner, or the family just gathers for dinner during the weekend, i eat.