While exercise is important for health, it has very little to do with weight control.
The only sure way of losing weight is calorie counting.
Male adults need between 2,100 and 2,300 calories per day to maintain weight. 3,500 calories == 1lb of fat. Literally, if you were to use an ice cream scoop to take a chunk out of your belly and burn it in a calorimiter, this is the number you would get.
Exercise can raise your metabolism so that your maintenance number goes up a little bit, but not enough to change weight loss in the aggregate. Exercise also burns calories directly, burning what you have eaten that day so it is not converted to fat. But the amount is very, very small (like 75 calories for a half hour of sit ups!). Bleh.
So if you eat 500 calories more than your maintenance number, you will gain 1lb per week. Conversely, if you eat 500 less than y our maintenance number, you will lose 1lb per week. There is about a week to 2 weeks of lag time in this.
A couple years ago, I cut myself down to 1,500 calories per day. I lost 49 pounds in 7 months.
This is HARD to do. You will be living with constant hunger. There are some strategies to mitigate this, but it takes some experimentation to find what works for you.
Exercise during such drastic weight loss is very important. When you are this hungry, your body will eat away at muscles as well as fat if you are not using them.
