My Plan
Food: I currently eat a "whole foods" based diet as much as possible - limiting processed and packaged foods and eating real, whole foods.
I count calories and aim for around 1600 calories per day while trying to keep my macros around 40/35/25. I allow myself one free day a week in which I can indulge in things I wouldn't normally eat. It allows me to satisfy a craving or go out with friends w/out freaking out. That's it really - nothing fancy or detailed and nothing forbidden. Just healthy eating that I know I can sustain.
My exercise plan: My workouts have varied over the years, but on average I make it to the gym 3-5 times a week. I do a combination of weight lifting (real weight lifting, not barbie weights) and cardio. In June I started the Couch to 5k training program (for the 5k race I mentioned above).
My Philosophy on Dieting
Over the last 2+ years I've come to realize that I don't believe in "diets". A diet is something that you "go on" to lose weight - but no one thinks about what happens when you "go off" the diet. What usually happens is that people go right back to their old ways of eating and they gain all the weight back. Then, of course, they say (as I did) that "diets don't work for me". The truth is that the diet *did* work - but the maintenance of the lifestyle was impossible.
What I try to do now is live a healthy life. That includes eating reasonable amounts of real food and getting a reasonable amount of exercise at least 3x a week. I've learned that for me being healthy, losing weight, and keeping it off means always being aware of what I'm eating and what I'm doing - not in an obsessive way, but in a keeping accountable kind of way. It's just like driving - once you have been doing it a while, you can drive w/out being 100% focused on the details, but you still wouldn't drive somewhere without keeping your eyes on the road.