this is a great post to read because im going thru something very similair. after many years of just letting my weight kind of balloon up without taking much action ive been working really hard at it since the start of march.
what ive done is 4 things, and i just these 4. i havent said no to pizza, no to fast food as a iron rule, but, with these rules it almost happens by default and ive only had pizza and fast food on 3 occasions in 1 month (as compared to ... well almost daily before)
My goal weight is 220 lbs, so at 1st I tried to just eat the daily calorie intake for that weight which is around 2100 calories. Was easy and I could do it. I actually would eat 1700~ calories a day during the 1st 2 weeks of my "diet" and I lost 16 lbs. Right now my calorie intake is up to 2200-2400 calories per day... as I hit an 8 day plateau at 1700 (way too few for my current weight). So with that in mind I keep track of what I eat during the day, not with pencil and paper but just a running total as best as I can do in my head.
- 2200-2400 calories per day.
- Limit simple carbs to near zero if I can. I can make exceptions if there's nothing else around... say I'm downtown and I need to eat lunch I'll allow thai express or rice etc. But generally speaking in a 7 day week I've probably cut my simple carbs down by 90% of my previous intake.
- Limit the sodium I take in.
- Snack on nuts, bananas, dates, apples thru out the day.
- The biggest change by far.. switching from coke to coke zero. I find that when I'm eating a meal my taste buds can't tell the difference between the two. In the last 34 days I've had 4 cokes in total... that is normally would I drink before in one day at least (yeah I know that's messed up).
Doing these 5 things and being mindful of them each day I've lost 20 lbs exactly this morning from my start on March 3rd. What I take great pride in is I hit a plateau for 8 days during this time and instead of giving up like before, I plowed thru it with daily exercise and doing some research about calories and what will cause your body to lose momentum. It's not easy, and going back to OP's original point I do find that I am limited in the foods I love. I love me some BBQ... it's the best thing ever. But I can't really allow myself to enjoy it so casually like before. But I will say to the OP that if you allow yourself to get in under the #'s and treat yourself you will be happier too. This week I made a home made pizza and split it between lunch and supper, with a salad on the side. It was delicious and I made it thru the day at exactly 2300 calories and I had some amazing pizza.
I guess me giving you advice is silly as you've already dropped the weight and I'm only part way there but... if you deny yourself the things you love you only increase your chances of snapping and going crazy on weekend on terrible food. A coke bing of food, if you will.