This 2006 book promotes a whole foods, low fat, plant based diet. But you can't be what they call "Junk food vegetarians" eating sweets, pastries, & pasta. A reasonable amount of physical activity was done by the 4,500 people in their study. My calculator figured 5.5% is exactly the amount I would like to lose. I would go from 122 to 115. They mentioned that exercising 15-45 minutes a day resulted in 11-18# lighter weight than otherwise. That has been true for me when I was on crutches for a while and just sitting all the time. (I gained weight doing that) They say don't count calories. You can eat more calories if you eat whole foods, fruits and vegetables etc with fiber rather than fat meat. Fiber makes you feel full. I'm going to cheat a bit and drink a plant based protein drink which is lots cheaper now than meat anyway and fewer calories, (15g protein for 75 calories).. Protein is satisfying too.
