I have to agree with all the diet stuff. I also have to say that it isn't that I was eating a lot that got me to my weight. It was simply eating junk food after I ate.
My wife once the kids were done with school last year stopped buying the junk food. She always would buy snack cakes, chips, and cookies to pack in their lunches. Well, if it's in the house, we ate it. It pretty much was never there for the kids' lunches because we ate it.
In the beginning of summer we stopped eating the stuff. We didn't "go on a diet", just stopped buying and eating the junk food. She started riding her old exercise bike, I did nothing. We both started losing weight. It wasn't until a month later that I got curious about what I did eat as far as calories. I started logging just to see out of curiosity. It was after downloading MyFitnessPal that led me to wonder what BMR was, figured that out, got the app to tell me how many calories I should eat to lose 2 lb. per week. That is 1800 calories, BTW for me. What the logging did was show me that I didn't over eat with meals. I was logging about 1700 calories a day without changing anything with how much I ate regular meals. Thus, it was strictly all the junk food, the buying something from the snack machine at work every day, the I think subconscious thought of "if I don't eat 2 of these Little Debbie Fudge Rounds, the kids will eat them all." The opening a bag of chips and eating right from the bag rather than getting a bowl (wow was I surprised when I started looking at what calories are in a "serving" of Doritos I would sit and eat while watching a movie or hockey game!)
I lost about 15 pounds in about a month and a half, or roughly 2 lb per week, with just no longer eating the junk food. It wasn't until after that first month and a half that I started riding my bike. Now that I've been riding the bike for at least an hour per day this past month along with still eating the same meal quantities but no junk food, I've lost 10 more pounds, or roughly 2 lb per week.
I always thought as everyone else, exercising will help you lose weight. I've now changed my thoughts and believe the statement, change diet to lose weight and exercise for fitness, fitness as in strong cardiovascular system, low cholesterol, and such. The more I read about this biking stuff the more my belief in that strengthens. And since I do know that my cholesterol and triglycerides are sky high and my blood pressure was borderline high, with the new belief in diet for weight and exercise for fitness, I'm really motivated to continue on the bike (that and, well, it is the dang funnest exercise I've done in my life and makes me feel like a kid again.)
I will say I as well as my wife has always had the notion that just because you're skinny, doesn't mean you are fit and healthy. I think that can be proven pretty easily by getting some of you longer time Clydes riding along some of the skinny folk of the population that all the "fad" diet folks think of as fit and see who can manage better in any kind of activity. Most of you Clydes in this forum would probably make the "skinny so I'm health" folks look pretty pathetic.