I want to start losing weight again after regaining it in quarantine, but I really hate counting calories. What other options do I have?

If counting calories happens to be the only way out of this mess, than I’m up for it - but I’d really like to avoid it.

I’ve lost weight with calorie counting before and honestly it was a bad experience despite the weight loss. I became mildly obsessed with the number of calories I was “supposed” to eat. That meant eating more than I wanted in order to hit that calorie number and beating myself up when I went over that number. I also ate pretty unhealthily while on this plan - calories in, calories out right? I held the mentality that doughnut calories = salad calories, so I’d eat whatever I’d enjoy more. I felt constantly hungry - likely due to the poor food choices I was making. For reference I’m 5’4” and 194lbs and I really don’t want to hit 200.

Well, the whole calorie counting thing made me miserable. I really don’t want to start down the path of obsessing over calories again - it seems unhealthy and that is certainly not a sustainable life long health plan. I don’t want it to be 30 years in the future and I’m still pulling out my phone to write down what I had for lunch.

My current thought is to just cook everything I eat myself from scratch. Cut the processed frozen foods, cut the obsessive late night snacking, cut the diet soda (I managed to already cut sugar soda), start working out etc. I don’t plan to do this all in one go, just baby steps at first, like making sure I cook breakfast every day, then add in lunch and dinner after a week or two of success with breakfast. I’m also looking into IF. Fix all the bad habits I have first, then start calorie counting if that doesn’t fix the weight issue.

Is it possible to lose weight without calorie counting? If it isn’t, then I’ll just get used to the counting again. I know this will likely take longer, but if it’s more permanent then I’d be happy with that trade off. Is there any other changes I should add to my list so I can lose weight with minimal/no calorie counting?

submitted by /u/Brookshone
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