The line that Jay hightlighted was the one that I was going to as well.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough to just add in exercise. If I were to exercise 7 days a week for hours and hours a day, if I didn't carefully monitor my food intake - I couldn't lose weight.
Losing weight, IMO successfully, long term, permanently - takes the combination of the 2 - healthy eating & exercise. And if you ask me, the eating part is for sure the *more important* part, if I had to (luckily I don't - I shudder to think about it in fact) have to pick one or the other.
Losing weight - and keeping it off takes determination, discipline, focus and work. You just can't have those cakes, cookies and what not AND be that slim, healthy person you long to be. You just can't have it both ways. RESTRICTION IS REQUIRED. It's not so easy to wrap your brain around (took me 20+ years to do so), but when you come to that understanding and ACCEPT it, it does get easier.
You said you were successful in the past calorie counting and exercising 5X a week. - Sounds like a great plan to me. Why not "jump into it" with that????
And hellloooo, glad you're back - but YOU"RE THE ONE who needs to stick around and not leave, young lady. Got it? Good.
You've done this before - you CAN do it again.