I am fortunate to have managed to get my BMI under 25 (24.7) by losing 48lb / 22kg / 3st 6lb while ill with severe ME/CFS. (I hope to lose more again).
It took me 2.5 years so I didn't break any records.
I thought I would share some techniques I used to lose the weight as a few people did ask me.
Note that I am not qualified to give medical or health advice. Also there are lots of other ways to lose weight.
I'm not saying that this will work for everyone as people can be in different circumstances to me. Also it probably takes a certain frame of mind to lose weight so I'm not going to tell everyone to lose weight. I was overweight for around a decade before I set my mind to it. (I gradually put up weight over a decade without trying to lose it during that period). Being ill particularly severely ill with this illness is tough.
Anyway here's what I did, for what it is worth. I might add to these 9 points if others occur to me.
#1:
Skip breakfast.
I find I can survive for a few hours after getting up without eating. I tend to eat late at night as that's when I feel my worst in terms of pain, malaise, etc. Some people say fasting like this can even be useful. Not for everyone, but helped me cut out calories.
#2:
Carry round a flask of herbal/fruit-flavoured tea, as well as water. Drinking helps distract me from eating. Also I try to drink while eating to make the food/eating last longer.
#3:
Reduce calories that are drunk.
I haven't drunk any calories during this period. Your body supposedly doesn't recognise calories that have been drunk. So if you eat calories, later in the day you will feel more full but if you drink calories, you will eat as much later as if you never consumed the calories.
You wouldn't have to do this completely to use the principle i.e. just drink fewer calories.
#4:
Weighing a lot of the food.
Boring I know but allows me to have all sorts of food including some treats.
Related point: calorie counting (approximately)
This helps give me a good idea how many calories I have consumed. If I know I'm not starving myself, I then can feel confident that I don't need to eat. A lot of my eating was out of habit rather than my needing the calories.
#5:
Reducing portion sizes.
This is related to weighing food and calorie counting (i.e. 4) but involves another point also. For example initially I weighed out 25 g portions of nuts. Then over time I wanted to lose weight quicker so I decreased the portion sizes to 20 g. Another item I reduced the quantity of was the number of grapes I have. If you get to eat the food rather than remove it completely it doesn't seem so bad and you can get used to smaller portion sizes, I find.
#6:
Allow myself one sweet treat per day (though occasionally I have more)
For years I had a sugar-free diet. But I feel I may have been too strict on myself and lost motivation. So now I allow myself a sweet treat every day or virtually every day at the end of the day. Maybe when I get to my main target weight I will cut this out for health reasons but at the moment I feel I'm earning it by losing weight. As with other things, I will try to weigh it or have an idea how many calories it has.
I generally keep sweet treats to the end of the day. So if somebody brought in something nice to the house, I would keep it till the end of the day.
I try to savour it as much as possible by cutting it up into pretty much the smallest pieces I can cut it into.
#7:
Have lots of smaller meals and snacks.
I reduced the size of my main meal. This freed me up to have more calories across the rest of the day. Also generally I try to have relatively small portions so that I can have more snacks.
#8:
Weighing myself regularly.
I think not weighing myself was a big reason I put up so much weight. Weighing yourself gives feedback whether you are doing something right or wrong. It's a bit easier for men I think as our weight doesn't fluctuate across the month. I have a weighing scales that gives weight broken down by 0.2lb (90g) so generally if I have stuck to my aim for the diet or something close to it, I will register a loss each week even if it is not huge. If I put on weight I can usually quickly work out why I did.
#9:
I try not to eat in some rooms/places.
One of the reasons I think I eat is because I am bored. So I allow myself to eat in places where I can get bored. So when I am on the computer I don't get bored so I don't let myself eat there. I also like being outside so try to avoid eating outside. Clocking up hours when I am not eating means I am less likely to eat too much in total.