Thank you.
Regarding running shoes. Granted fancy shoes do naught. And those who have adapted over a long term to barefoot running are at a lower risk of injury than those who run with cushioned shoes. But one does have to get from here to there somehow, and running with worn-out cushioned shoes may be worst of all.
And rahter than totally hijack further, I thought the subject of barefoot/minimalist running deserves its own thread.
You won’t see a sixpack, but if you tone your abs, your waist will get a bit smaller. If the OP wants to get ripped, then it won’t help him by doing crunches, but if he’s hoping to wear pants a size smaller, it may well do that.
But what I was saying was that it worked the other way around, too. On the same diet, when I stopped exercising, I gained weight. So clearly it’s not a weight loss diet. If anything I probably consumed fewer calories during that time, since I also stopped going to pubs (it was when I was studying for my law exams and I really had no time to do anything non-academic like exercise or socialise).
Again, I’m talking about a relatively small weight range, and I’ve certainly never eaten 20 cheeseburgers a day 
But I do regularly eat foods that would be no-nos on most diets and I rarely worry about limiting my portions for the sake of my waistline. I take the point that for most overweight people they need to address their diet first and foremost. But in my own experience it absolutely has been the exercise, or lack thereof, that’s made the difference.
Right, I see what you’re saying. But for most people, especially at the beginning of a fitness regime, it’s a lot easier to cut enough calories from the diet to achieve weight loss than it is to burn enough calories via exercise to achieve weight loss. An hour of, say, brisk walking burns about enough calories to make up for half of that giant-size muffin that you ordered at Starbucks this morning. (Not you specifically; just using an example.)
It sounds like your diet was naturally pretty close to the number of calories you needed to maintain your current weight, so exercise had more of an impact for you. Or maybe you were just hitting the gym really super hard. 
If you have fat and muscle at the waistline you need to remove some of either or both to get a smaller waist size. Exercising to build up your abs, with no reduction of fat, will not make your waist smaller. If anything, building your ab muscles will mean you need a bigger pants, not smaller.
Resistance work means building muscles. AFAIK, they can’t get smaller (toned) as a result; they will get bigger.
For me, cutting volume intake with exercise doesn’t work. Since exercise makes me ravenous, I have to change what I eat instead of how much. Raw fruits and vegetables, legumes, small portions of meat, only water and unsweetened tea to drink. I would never eat a starbucks muffin for breakfast no matter if I was watching my waistline or not, and I suspect anyone who would doesn’t give a fuck how they look or feel.
And like I said earlier, I don’t really consider walking to be exercise. It’s something we all do daily anyway and should be a neutral baseline, unless you’re like 85 years old or 500lbs. Most people aim way too low.
Yes, the Starbucks muffin was a hypothetical. My point was that low-intensity exercise does not burn very many calories.