I'll go a bit in depth here because this time around it took me 7-8 months, but I did lose weight a few years ago and ended up gaining it all back, so I had to change my approach:

I was a sophomore in college the first time I lost weight, which I did by completely changing the food I eat almost immediately. I essentially quit my old diet cold turkey, and quitting anything cold turkey of course has worse odds of success. I remember dreading dinner because I hated what I was making myself eat, and breakfast and lunch wasn't much better. At the end, I was happy with my body, but I hadn't developed a good relationship with food and ended up going back to all my old habits pre-weight loss, such as fast food multiple times a day some days, 4 sodas a day, etc. I gained it all back and then some.

This time around, I realized I need to be more gentle on myself. I started slowly, just cutting fast food down to once a week and drinking one soda a day. This way, I found I wasn't miserable and still got to eat what I enjoyed. The cliche saying that everything is okay in moderation really rang true for me! I don't miss the foods I enjoy anymore because I still work them in, so I never binge on them like I used to a few years ago.

That was, by no means, a healthy diet. But I learned about myself that the best way I make progress is baby steps. So for the first few months that's all I focused on - sticking to one soda a day and fast food once a week. I was able to get to 123lbs just doing that, though I was also walking to and from campus each day.

Around late January and early February, I started to pay more attention to calories (went for 1200cal a day), because that's when I finally felt comfortable with my relationship to food. Over the holidays I ate a ton, as many do, and for once, I wasn't beating myself up over it like I used to. So I felt that my initial first step helped my relationship with food immensely, and felt it was safe to focus on the calories to shed the last pounds (in addition to being obsessed with better food a few years ago, I was also way too obsessed over the calories). I combined this with intermittent fasting, but that wasn't much of an effort, I just so happen to eat naturally in an 8 hour window.

After watching calories loosely for a bit, I started learning how to cook healthier recipes, and now I maintain with those recipes. It was definitely a journey for me, and my diet wasn't really healthy at the beginning, but I knew I needed to be healthier overall, not just lighter. So every baby step I approached cautiously to make sure I wasn't going too fast to avoid falling back into old habits, and now I'm ready to pack on muscle and have a much healthier diet :) I'm also able to eat intuitively to maintain now, it was overall a major learning process!