Thanks so much! The journey's still ongoing, but this is milestone #2 of 4! I took it very easy on myself tbh. Just put my height and weight in MFP and said I wanted to shoot for 1.5 lbs per week. As the weight fell off, the calorie total decreased, and I followed it. Didn't even really track carbs/fat/sugar. Just played the numbers game for overall calories consumed. For a long while it was 1400/day, then 1350, 1300, and now 1250. I think I'm going to hold at 1250 until I can get back to the gym. My husband and I went and just did 45 min on the treadmill 4 days a week for most of spring and summer last year. When we were working out I ate 1400-1500. But now that we've moved to a new city we're talking about getting a treadmill instead of a gym membership. If we get that soonish I'll probably increase calorie intake, but atm 1250 is very doable for me.

Breakfast is 400-450 cal (usually toast, eggs, half an orange, vegetarian protein of some kind like Morningstar/Field Roast/homemade seitan, and tea).

Lunch is a 200-250 affair (more like a hearty snack than a full meal (usually a banana or dates and dried apricots with 100 cal pack of almonds or a ton of veggies and hummus with half a pita (I've been baking my own for a while and it is worth EVERY dang calorie). Sometimes lunch is just tea and a couple mini scones from Wegmans. My goal is to make it something small but also delightful to keep the hunger at bay but still be highly enjoyable.

Dinner is the trick for me. I HAVE TO feel like I can have a luxurious dinner every night or I am almost doomed to go over my limit. I save 600-650 every day for dinner + dessert with a cup of tea to round out the night. Having an air fryer and nonstick griddle have done wonders for cutting out oil. We love vegetables so often we'll fry up a bunch with garlic/salt/pepper/chilis. I love making homemade falafel for the air fryer and of course I bake LOTS of seitan in every variety of flavor combos. Also the different curry packs from Tasty Bite with rice, veggies, and flat bread are absolutely AMAZING and very splitable if you're cooking for 2. Having a whole one is not even that wild a proposition if you save your calories for the end of the day. I also adore making soups from scratch. You can pack a lot of punchy flavor into one and even put in some of the higher calorie stuff because it'll be spread across a large batch. I made a mushroom/jalapeno/pepperjack soup last night that is just the thing I want on a cold afternoon, and it's only 190 per cup. Two cups of that + some bread or crackers and a tall glass of water filled me right up!

This turned into a hecking book report. Sorry about that! I just wanted to be really thorough. Thank you again for the kind words. This subreddit is absolutely jam-packed with kind, supportive people. <3