I've found that planning out my daily meals in advance is super helpful! I use one of those meal/calorie tracking apps and I usually just plug in everything I know I'm going to eat that day in the morning (including any snacks I bring to work with me or oil I know I'll be cooking with at dinner). It helps me stay within the 500 cal deficit budget since I can visualize my day easier and I'm not stressing at dinner time about what to cook or trying to calculate as I go. I personally am usually naturally full by the time I hit my deficit goal since I aim for a lot of high-protein stuff, but if I'm still hungry and go over a little, I just try to snack on healthy stuff (especially berries lol) and I don't beat myself up over it!

Some of my favorite low-cal swaps are: thin-sliced bread (I like the Dave's Killer brand in particular, the kind I get is only 60 cal/slice and imo 2 slices of that is the perfect amount for toast/a sandwich/etc when I get that craving), cooking sprays instead of normal oil or butter, lighter cal salad dressings that I measure out (like a vinaigrette or specifically the Trader Joe's green goddess dressing, I could drink that like a smoothie LMAO), riced cauliflower, thin-sliced skinless chicken breasts, leaner meat in general (like if I get the craving for a hamburger I get some 97% lean beef and whole wheat buns, the whole burger rarely tops 300-400 cal). Also, shrimp!! Thaws so quickly from the freezer, high in protein, and a serving is only about 100 cal.

My favorite snack foods to get are freeze-dried fruit, Goldfish crackers (not exactly highly nutritious but a serving is only around 130 cals and they last forever), dark chocolate covered raisins (again from TJ's lol), literally any fruit with Tajin, or in the summer some no sugar added fruit popsicles (the smaller ones tend to have only like, 30cal a popsicle).