I lost 15 kg's toward the end of last year purely through calorie counting and cardio. I wasn't massively overweight to begin with. I weighed about 98 kg's when my ideal weight is about 80.
Found a free iphone ap called "my fitness pal" which is a reasonably accurate calorie counter. It helped me a lot as it sets boundaries for how many calories you should consume and helps you track, but it also takes exercise into account so you aren't starving yourself. Also used the nike+ ap to help me keep track of my running.
Training schedule went like this-
Treadmill twice a week, running outdoors twice a week.
Treadmill, 40 minutes starting at 8.5 km / hour. Leave it there for as long as I could and then move it back to 6.5 (a brisk walk for me) when I ran out of puff. Once I'd get my breath back I'd turn it up again. Last two minutes I would turn it up to 12 and try to hold til the end.When I started I was doing about 4 km's in the 40 minute work out, within a few months I was at the point where I could run at 9.5km / hr for the full 40 or 9.0 km for 38 and finish with a stint of 2 minutes at 12 km / hr. Nowadays I'm over the 7km for 40 minutes mark.
Outdoors, I started off with two runs of around 4km's per week. Of course when you first start, you just try to pace yourself and run as far as you can until you run out of puff. Then you walk until you can run again. Next time you go, you try to go a little further before that first break while trying to have fewer breaks in total. Within about a month I could run the 4k's non stop. Now I run 4km's once per week and then have a longer run of 8km's once per week outdoors.
When I started out, I was running / walking about 16km's per week. Now I do about 26km's per week.
On top of that, I have my regular indoor cricket and oztag happening, but I have played both of these now for several years anyway and they had no effect on my weight. If anything, they are detrimental because I regularly pick up injuries that stop me from running.
If you are going to embark on something like this, make sure you have good running shoes, first and foremost. When I first started I was wearing an old banged up pair and was getting back pain and headaches. Upgraded my shoes and that all went away.
Drink PLENTY of water. It's amazing how many calories are in soft drink and fruit juice and think about your snacks. There are some great snack foods out there that taste great but aren't absolutely loaded with calories. One of my favourites are the Berry Weiss bars. Taste fantastic, but only have about 100 calories. Really good way to treat yourself at the end of a day after a long run.
Also, I don't subscribe to the no carb theory. Bread and rice is ok if it's brown and in moderation. Rice in particular makes you feel quite full with only a small amount. Stir fries are a great way to lose weight imo. Something like a honey soy chicken is dead easy to make. Load it with vegies and make the sauce yourself because the pre made stuff is generally loaded with salt (and sugar as well sometimes) and you have a fast meal that will fill you up and isn't full of calories.
Keep the ingredients around and knowing that you can whip something like this up in 10 minutes will reduce the risk of you wanting to get takeaway. Great meal to cook when you think you can't be arsed cooking.
The most important thing imo is that you don't try to starve yourself and lose 10 kilo's in the first week. Losing weight should be treated as a gradual process I aimed to lose somewhere like half a kilo to a kilo / week. Any more than that and you are probably starving yourself / doing something unsustainable.
It's not an easy thing to do by any stretch, but if you can do it, you will feel fantastic about yourself.
Good luck.
