I have gone from 33% body fat to 22% in 7 months. It has been purely through moderate calorie restriction but eating the same stuff. I used to swim and do CrossFit and it was so hard to lose weight because I would inevitably have an injury that would prevent me from working out and would lead to weight gain until a few weeks. I have been unable to lose weight for 12 years because I focused so much on exercise and diet when really just doing diet was the key. Once I get to my goal body fat percentage I plan on starting exercising a lot again but until then it’s just 8k steps or so a day. I do agree people try diets to avoid exercise but most people I know do both when trying to lose weight.