I shitlorded a guy I met into losing weight (it only took 1 week with me to undo the years of fat mindset... he came to my little corner of Europe from the US to visit my school, and there are wayyy fewer fats in this country) and you are so right on the soda bottles thing.  When I was explaining this shit to him (CICO), he kept protesting that he didn't eat much. So, I started asking him what he drank in a day. I worked it out as an extra 5000 fucking calories daily in Soda, Starbeetus and sweet fucking tea. This kid didn't even serve himself with a spoon, just straight up poured sugar into his tea from the jar.  It's almost like they don't think calories count if you drink them. Anyway, long story short he went from 6'6" and 300lb, BMI 35 to 200 lbs, BMI 23 in 18 months. He didn't even bother me asking for diet advice, just cut out sugared drinks and restricted his intake of food.