Actually, I lost a lot of weight just by cutting 10% from my calories. I did no additional exercise and no extravagant changes to diet ... just identified a few places where there was a big calorie win and knocked it out. Then, I just waited. It takes a long time, but I hardly modified my life at all. I think half the problem with the struggle people have to lose weight is just that they are impatient - if they don't see results within a week or two they just give up. The key ingredients to me are moderation and time.