I had read the whole thread and its not like that I have much to contribute here.
I am somewhat overweight, not as much as some people here. Sadly, I have been that for many years.
I had tried a lot of stuff, and sadly I havent yet really found a super effective method, just a somewhat effective method that I have been not been able to apply it again lately.
I think the best tip I can give is to simply try to concentrate most of your calories as early as possible. Always eat modestly or near zero during the evening, and try to put your most caloric stuff for breakfast. I took that tip from Google Academy from articles of my native language that it isnt english, and that was many years ago to point out, but I there is at least one article supporting that view in one form or another, even though it wont do big miracles.
Another tip that was modestly inefficient, but at least somewhat works, is using green tea. Green tea is the only safe stuff for long-term, meaning that you can take green tea for your whole life without having much problems (watch for excess) and green tea, although very inefficiently, helps to reduce weight.
One thing that caught my attention is intermittent fasting, which is something I want to try on the future. I think [MENTION=20113]Tellenbach[/MENTION] mentioned in the thread here, and, actually, there seems to have some good scientific support for intermittent fasting:
Is intermittent fasting safe for older adults? - Harvard Health
Intermittent fasting might boost the creation of new neurons in a key brain structure
However, as Health-Havard-edu warned on the link, you have to check if you do not have some sort of disease that might be boosted by intermittent fasting.
There is another advisement, I had friends that, at teen age, had stomach problems because they usually spent way too much time not eating. So, for the fasting hours, the recommended is to actually eat a very small input of food with very low calorie stuff to prevent stomach problems. Another thing is that I would recommend to do the fasting focusing for not eating at night and to eat at day. And, of course, I do not think 5-2 is a good idea.
I had experimented myself many years ago and I had 3-4 days of eating a very low amount of food and 2 days increasing slowly the amount of food - I literally got hunger, felt a decrease in cognition, etc... And I had monitored my weight. I dont remember the numbers, just the approximate percentages.
Day 1 - 100% of weight loss
Day 2 - 50% of weight loss
Day 3 - 50% of weight loss
Day 4 - 50% of weight loss
Day 5 - 50% of weight loss
Day 6 - 40% of weight loss
In day 5 (or 4, I dont exactly remember), I had eaten as usual, but had tried some amount of chocolate.
It seemed that the chocolate made no difference. I dont remember the exactly number, but it was between 60-100 grams.
At day 6 (or 5, I dont exactly remember), I had increased the chocolate dosage and it answered.
What I did was unhealthy and required some good dose of discipline for the experiment, but with that I had learner that the very first day of reducing was very efficient, while the other days werent. That is my problem with 5-2 Intermittent fast, the second day is probably inefficient.