Understand the basics of nutrition, mainly calories in calories out. I (and many people I know) often move 5 or more kgs up or down in preparation for a tournament with weight classes. It's really no big deal if you track your calories.
I'm always surprised how people struggle with losing weight, it's really not that hard to do.
Do some sport that you enjoy regularly that covers your cardio and lift some weights. Eat somewhat healthy, but mostly watch how much you eat.
I'm always surprised how people struggle to quit smoking. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, once, and then just stopped. It's really not that hard to do.
Addiction is a different problem, but losing weight itself is easy if you track calories (I know lots of people who claim the opposite).
What you eat MOSTLY dictates your weight. Your fitness level MOSTLY only impacts your medium-long term health. Yes, broad strokes, but more true than untrue.
Being overweight and trying not to be overweight requires a LOT of mental energy and trying to fight the sugar addiction/control diet is genuinely exhausting.
If I got fit, I'd still be fat, and it would sap the little mental energy I have to spare that I use for weight loss/control at the moment. It may also give me a false sense of achievement. Plus if I'm not careful I could fuck up my knees indefinitely.
I look at fitness goals as something I'd do when I am in the "Overweight" BMI region rather than the "Obese" one. But even then I'd likely look at HIIT[0] because I think I'd do it more consistently than several hours at the gym (even if it has less health gains, it is "good enough").
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_traini...
But you are doing the right thing by focusing on losing weight through nutrition.
Just track how much you eat, then you can be lazy with food preparation (I am too). If you feel hungry and need something filling, eat some protein.
Tracking calories can be annoying at first, but after doing it for a couple of week you'll get intuition and you won't need an app anymore.
I could still do the cycle or run - but it would take time away from my kids, and its not fair for me to be grumpy around them because im tired
I still do an hour a day commuting though, and an hour on the the weekend
(Maybe not cycling or running though... but they will probably enjoy stuff like rock climbing)
If something is important enough to you then you'll find the time to deal with it.
