There is no silver bullet. To lose weight, you only need to intake less energy than your body uses to function. When you have energy deficit, your body consumes energy stored in the batteries^Wfat. Thus, you lose weight. Exercising does not seriously increase the use of energy, so the biggest loss of weight comes from eating less. It is not too significant to follow the rules like 'no eating after 6', only the deficit matters.

Exercising helps because of you build muscle mass, you increase 'passive' energy consumption, because muscle tissue requires more energy than fat tissue.