The idea of seeing a nutritionist/dietician is interesting but you would have to be careful to find one that is up on the latest research, which is constantly evolving our understanding of nutrition. Of my close personal acquaintances that have seen either a nutritionist or dietician, none have really had stellar success in terms of weight loss.
Conversely, I decided to research my own solution after ballooning out to over 110 kg. Being 187 cm tall, I actually reached the 'obese' category. After months of going nuts reading internet wisdom (fat is poison, fruit is poison, grains are poison, dairy is poison, nightshades are poison, meat is poison etc) I started to sort through the nonsense and filter out some actual good advice that made a difference for me.
Sitting at a comfortable 87/88 kg, I can reflect on what worked for me. My essential strategies are: (1) eating more vegetables and fruit, (2) portion control, (3) less refined carbohydrates.
(1) as a vegetarian, I would have thought that I was eating enough veggies and fruit. An audit of my weekly food intake indicated a drastic under consumption of vegetables and fruit. To rectify this I bought fruit for my working week and put it on my desk at work. I found it easier to eat the fruit than leave the building in search of junk food.
(2) because I refuse to weigh my food or calorie count, I just used a tea cup to measure portions which I slowly reduced over time. I have cut the size of my evening meal roughly in half.
(3) in refined carbohydrates I include flour, sugar and potato chips (crisps). Prior to adopting healthier eating patterns my food intake consisted predominantly refined carbs. Besides lacking in basic essential nutrients, these foods made me feel more hungry. So even though I had already eaten 6 times by the time I got home from work I felt 'starving'.
I went from eating 9 times a day to 3 or 4, added in some nuts, more olive oil and more coconut oil (because I wasn't getting enough fat) and full fat dairy and that is pretty much it. This resulted in a 'weight' loss of around 1-1.5 kg a month, which seems slow but adds up over time. 20 something kilograms later I am feeling a lot better. Something else that was important to me was to focus on eating nutritious foods rather than focussing on what I "couldn't" eat (deprivation) and feeling like I was switching to healthier eating patterns rather than "going on a diet". The volume of nutritionally dense foods is huge compared to energy dense foods and nutritionally dense foods are harder to eat. When I first switched, by the end of the day I was actually tired of eating. Of course as my size has decreased, I have decreased my volume of food so this doesn't happen anymore. I did hit a plateu about 3 months in where my 'weight' loss stalled. I found that I had to actually increase the amount of food I was eating to continue to 'lose weight'.
If you turn to the internet, you are going to discover some popular memes (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) that have been around for a while. Here are the most common ones I have found:
(a) it's calories in vs calories out
(b) carbs make you fat
(c) grains are toxic
(d) no carbs at night
(e) modern fruit is bred to be sweeter
After extensive research and based on my own experience I have found each of these to be untrue. Personally, I would say:
(a) it is the quality and quantity of food that will determine your size
(b) an overconsumption of refined carbohydrates will result in storing body fat
(c) grains contribute little to nutrition and should not displace nutritious foods from your eating plan
(d) quality carbohydrates (such as legumes and vegetables) at night can assist weight loss subject to portion control
(e) modern fruit is bred to be high yielding, to look good, be large, be easy to transport, have a long shelf life, not to be sweet or taste good
If you are not sensitive to particular food types and don't believe everything you read on the internet, basic nutrition isn't that complicated. It mainly revolves around eating a variety of whole foods, reducing refined foods and making sure you eat enough fat and protein along with your quality carbs.