FIRST TO GO - SUGAR, CAL'S, CARBS OR SODIUM

1-Switch from white bread to whole wheat (after a few weeks it doesnt taste like cardboard anymore)
2-If you drink soda, stop.
3-if you drink beer / alcohol, stop.
4-if you drink orange juice, stop.
5 DRink only water or milk (if you are into that sort of thing)

Do only one of the first 4 things and I GUARANTEE you will notice the difference.

It would also depend on your personal health indicators. Someone with high blood pressure might want to focus more on sodium, whereas someone with pre-diabetes might prefer to focus more on sugar. What I did was focus exclusively on calories in the beginning, tracking everything I ate to begin getting an idea of what the various counts were, and then once I had a month or so of logging behind me, I began looking at which numbers I needed to focus on reducing as well as which numbers I needed to increase (such as fiber and protein). Psychologically, I find it much easier and more fun to focus on adding things than to focus on reducing things, and once I started increasing the fiber and the protein, the other items naturally decreased because I simply didn't have room for them any more. Best of luck figuring out what numbers best fit your nutritional needs!

Sodium, no doubt. Don't worry about sugar unless you're diabetic.

To me if you start eating healthy; lean meats, veggies, fruits and high fiber foods you will pretty much lower your calories, fat, carbs, sugar etc....So just move to healthy foods.

Calories would be the obvious answer I think. I spend exactly zero time watching the other junk. Don't even look at my sugar or Sodium (Except to go 'Oh hey. Over for the week by Wednesday again.' Though I made it to Saturday without going over this week, go me I guess) and carbs are not the enemy.

Getting rid of Sugar, Sodium, or carbs won't make you lose weight alone, but cutting calories alone will.

For me it was sodium, but that is because I retain water like crazy. I always try to get the highest fiber content I can, especially with bread. I have also just cut out white rice (though the arsenic in brown rice has me moving to barley instead) and whole wheat pasta instead of white.

You can safely ignore managing sodium. See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/we-only-think-we-know-the-truth-about-salt.html?pagewanted=all (google Taubes on Sodium New York Times if cutting and pasting is a pain). you can also ignore fiber in case you were wondering.http://www.city-data.com/forum/diet-weight-loss/1657454-science-no-evidence-fiber-vegetables-required.html

Sugar is a Carbohydrate so if you manage carbs you manage sugar directly.
You need not manage calories, protein or fat. Yes, that's correct. if you manage carbohydrates, these manage themselves.

That leaves you with only carbohydrates to manage.

when you set up in MFP, the system will propose a carbohydrate level to manage you to. Mine happened to be 250 grams of carbs a day. Switch the goals so that you manage them directly instead of relying on MFP's guidelines. change the carbs MFP proposes so that you LOWER the carbs. You should be able to safely cut the initial MFP guideline in half. You can also safely go to under 100 grams of carbs a day (i.e. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc, all track to under 100 grams of carbs a day).

this will force your protein and fat intake up. don't worry about it. eat all the fat and protein you want. DON"T REDUCE YOUR FAT INTAKE! Yes, that's right. your body will need the fat for energy when it starts missing all the carbs. remember, your body burns FAT for energy, stores CARBS (AS FAT) and builds tissue out of Protein. It will take a few weeks for your body to switch to Ketosis and begin the FAT burning (instead of FAT BUILDING) that you're looking for.

You may find after a week you can attack the carb cycle again and take your grams of carbs down to 50 or so grams per day. don't worry. your body doesn't 'NEED' carbs. it doesn't need 'whole grains' or starches or anything. It just needs FATs and Proteins.

you're on your way. read Gary's pdf at
http://www.dragaonordestino.net/Drachenwut_Blog_DragaoNordestino/Ernaehrung/Ernaehrung_arquivos/Notes-to-Good-Calories-Bad-Calories.pdf
because you can't take me as an authority.

FAST - ok, you're next concern is how fast can this work. In my and my wife's experience it CAN work fast. my wife dropped about 30 pounds in four - five weeks, (175 to 145). the carbohydrate reduction will initially cause you to stop carrying so much water (that thing they keep trying to tell you salt does to you is actually done by carbohydrates).

Stay on it. don't worry about exercise beyond walking or swimming please. and walking in water is fine (great) too. no running at this point. if you're heavy as you suggest you are running hurts your body. walking on land or in the pool is fine.

that's it. you'll regularly drop weight each week. once you begin approaching your goal weight exercise to your heart's content but please do not think exercise helps you lose weight. it doesn't. it only works and builds muscle and any reduction in weight is incidental.

YOU MUST CONSUME ENOUGH CALORIES For your body to not start fasting! if you reduce your caloric intake the body will suspect you are in a famine and it will SLOW your metabolsim. You actually want to flood your body with protein and fat so that your body's metabolism will 'accelerate'. As the carbohydrates are removed from your system, the pancreas will finally stop pushing insulin (the adipose building hormone) into your blood stream, take a nice long nap and the body will begin to turn to its only other source of energy which is your STORED FAT. it will then begin to burn it. You need not exercise for this to happen.

it's so damn simple and society so miseducates us as to how it works that I'm actually distressed everytime i see an overweight person trying to starve the weight off.

you're going to miss bread! don't eat it. there are some low car breads at sprouts, like 8-11 grams of carbs per ounce but my suggestion is to stop eating bread, grains, cereal, potatoes, rice, sugar. if it's white it ain't right like they say.

you'll eat meat, chicken, fish, vegetables (cooked). stay away from fruit (sugar), milk (use almond milk unsweetened), use Truvia or Atkins bars for your sweet tooth.

good luck, keep us posted. this should be good for 10-40 pounds in the first month you try it.

Everyone has different theories on what to do - ugghh !!!! I will count my calories, cut down on sugar and fat and exercise and see how that goes for a month.

Good for you, and good luck. You can always revisit and revise next month if needed.