Nothing ever seems possible to stick to....

The plan is simple enter your details into the MFP calculator it does it all for you, eat no more than the calories it states, weigh all food accurately drink water and in doing so lbs drop, if you wish to incorporate exercise great it does work but make sure goals are realistic it takes longer than a week, after 3 weeks the scale only just moving patience accuracy and honesty and motivation that's all you need feel free to add me.

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Looking into it a bit more 2000 might be slighty too few calories for you. How much exercise are you really doing? Are you getting your heart rate up? Try and aim for 2200 calorie goal and keep that up for at least six weeks (you have to change your calorie goal as you lose weight, too).

You don't have to give up the things you like. I've heard of people giving up carbs and chocolate etc but my diet is very carb heavy. Tomorrow I'm having two white bread rolls and 300g oven cooked chips for example. You have to make your lifestyle change something you can keep up and I could not give up bread and chips, there is no way that would be sustainable to me.

You need to look into weight lifting, too, because you don't want to lose weight only to become flabby (and it can help, somewhat, with loose skin).

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Please don't assume I have a drinking problem, or will get one - I can take or leave wine, thats not the issue here. As I said, I have the same problem whether I have a drink or not.

not my assumption at all, a bottle of wine is nothing in terms of glasses of wine. Its just the effect on your body. My guess is things aren't being logged accurately, and you should maybe get your cortisol levels checked. Do you get regular sleep? Do you feel fatigued at all? Things like that can be issues behind not being able to lose weight as well.
As far as sticking to things, I think that's a mentality that will set someone up for failure. You need to view it as a lifestyle change, not some regime you have to "stick to" in order to see success. View food as fuel, and focus on your macros for the day. Centre all your food around fitting in to your macros, and you will most likely see results. Its so hard to get away from the ENJOYMENT of food, whether it is healthy or not etc, we tend to eat when we aren't hungry and end up in trouble. Try to eat based on fulfilling your macros, keep foods you like involved.

If you read the thread it's pretty clear that OP is not counting his calories properly. If he eats at too few calories he might lose weight too fast and end up with loose skin.

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You said you can take or leave wine, ok then - leave it.
Most nights? not even slightly nessecary - ofc if you don't have a problem, this wont be an issue for you, you could set yourself a goal, say - one bottle per month, make it last you a month.

Don't eat un-needed calories, start using food as fuel, measure all your food, log every single bit, as others think you're probably eating more than you think you are.

Honestly if you can't stick to that - then you are the issue, either you have decided that your health isn't worth commiting to, or you need to get some blood tests done and speak to your doctor, as you may have health issues holding you back.

best of luck.

Taking MFP as an example, I am starting this (AGAIN) today and I will lose around 4-6lb of water over the next several days. Then after a few days I will get fed-up then go back to eating as I was before.

What do you mean when you say you get fed-up? It would be helpful to know what triggers you to go back to the way you were eating so we can suggest a way to deal with that.

There are no golden rules or tips that can make you lose weight if you don't really want to. There's no cure getting 'fed up and go back to eating like before', or eating lots of crisps and chocolate and takeaways. And bottles of red wine and drinking most nights.

Basically... you have to decide. Do you want to lose or not, and then when you've chosen to do it, you do it. Right now you've not really chosen to - you know you should, but there's no real effort.

I don't understand your comment about 'struggling to hit 2000 a day'. I'm a 51kg petite female and I could pack away 2000 in a single meal without breaking a sweat (two or three courses, drinking alcohol or a big creamy coffee, dessert...) My usual Costa lunch racks up about 1000 cals. A muffin or donut in the workplace, plus a trip to the vending machine (or three) - another 1000. Your snacks/extras alone could be half of that - 250ml of red wine can be around 228 calories - you drink the bottle? Three glasses, 684. 184 in a bag of crisps, 245 in a Cadbury bar - bam. One day, no meals counted for yet, and you're already at 1113.

I just logged my lunch, and 125 of the calories were just what I nibbled while making someone else's lunch! Seriously. It's not hard to overeat. In our culture it's practically encouraged ('snack time!' 'Buy more snacks!' 'Snacks keep you going!' 'You deserve it!' 'It's just one!')

Step one would be to honestly satisfy your curiosity. Buy a scale and log everything you eat. Keep it private if you wish, just for a figure you can see. You'll see, I dunno, 3000, 4000 maybe. Use a TDEE calculator to estimate how much you burn each day just by being alive and walking the dogs - it'll be X. Now eat less than X. Don't do anything stupid like eating 1200 calories. Just 300 less than X, you're in a deficit, you will lose. But it's not a big deficit. If you want chocolate, factor it into the figures (ie: see my diary, I've had Galaxy today.) If you want crisps, factor it in - but you probably can't afford to 'spend' your calorie budget on both. If you want to drink, drink less.

But really the only advice is that you need to want to. My parents have been obese for years. They talk about losing weight but neither of them want to. They eat rich and big and frequently, cramming in biscuits and crisps whenever they can, pouring lager on top from 4pm onwards. They don't want to change, and that's really the only factor stopping them.

When people say log EVERYTHING you eat it's because you really would be surprised at how much it adds up to. For example, Saturday I went to Costco and they were giving out free samples of a dark chocolate covered dried strawberry. It was a small size, about the side of two marbles. I popped it in and to be honest, it wasn't very good. I got almost done shopping then decided to go back and find out how many calories were in them. Turns out there were 170 calories in only 2 pieces. So I mindlessly added 43 calories and it wasn't even good! If I do something like that twice a day for a week it really adds up! It's those mindless eating things that can really mess you up.

I used to delude myself into thinking "oh, it was just a bite, I don't need to write that down" then I would act surprised that I didn't lose anything. I can't believe I was lying to my food diary as if my food diary would trick my body into not absorbing those calories. lol. Seriously. Who lies to their food diary!? Sooo glad I'm over that phase. I feel so silly that I believed my own lies.