After battling my weight forever I found the simple but difficult thing I needed to do was lower my calorie intake much lower than the medicos would advise. They are convinced no one in my weight class should intake less than 1600 calories per day. Even went through a VA program (worthless) that told me the same thing. Eat a balanced 1600 cal diet and you will lose 1-2 lbs per week. Nonsense.
I lowered my cal intake to below 1200 and started losing weight. The reason it was difficult at first is my stomach had gotten stretched out and used to a certain portion size. By soldiering past the hunger cravings my stomach shrunk so that the smaller portions filled me up. I eat about half of what I did before. I met a heavy set lady at the gym pool a couple of months ago who told me she had lost 250 lbs by cutting her portion size in half. It had taken her 5 years to lose that much weight but by doing it slower; the body gets used to being at that weight and won’t try to gain it back.
Basically I did one of those stomach shrinking surgeries without the surgery and expense or liquid diet.
Now I’m losing about 3/4 - 1 lb a day. If that stops and I’m on the same intake cals then I’ll know my body has lowered its metabolism to prevent me from losing more weight. I’ll know to not get frustrated and just allow my body to adjust. I could add exercise to kick start the weight loss again but I’m not there yet so I’ll just have to wait and see.
After months of struggling, eating well (right things), and going to the gym but only losing 4-5 lbs I kind of gave up. Then an illness kick started me into lowering my cal intake and the lbs started melting off. That was 25 lbs ago. I don’t recommend getting sick to lose weight of course but the lesson is the same and I don’t even go to the gym. Just walk the dogs a few times a week. Some days I have to force myself to eat because I don’t get hungry like I used to before the calorie restricted diet. I keep track of my cals with a free online program called https://www.loseit.com/. Some days I don’t even make it to 900 cals. I think when I reach my target weight I’ll start going to gym a couple times a week. I really do like swimming.
I know some folks do well eating once a day but not all. Better for many to eat 2-3 smaller meals than one large one. I do however splurge at a restaurant once in a while and have 800-1000 cals in one sitting. On those days I don’t have much more than some yogurt or a handful of nuts so my cal count stays low. Once you get used to judging how many cals a meal is; you might be surprised at how much you used to eat. Buffet’s are completely out. Waste of money when you can’t eat more than half a plate at one sitting.
One added benefit besides not lugging around the extra weight is my food bill has been cut in half. Yes!
The problem is knowing what the "right things" are. What we've been told is a healthy diet for decades is basically flat wrong. Turn the food pyramid upside down and it's closer to being right.
I now eat a high fat, low carb diet (basically ketogenic), and am dropping weight at about the same rate as you. Do not work out when trying to lose weight, it makes you hungrier, and it takes a lot of exercise to burn significant calories.
I eat when I want, how much I want. I just don't eat if I'm not hungry. I find that without the carbs I don't get hungry very much and am easily satisfied.
The key variable is not to focus on quantity but on kind. Eliminate the carbs, especially sugar and refined grains, and the rest will likely follow.