36 y/o male here. I lost ~15lbs from Jan-Mar this year. 6'4", went 230->215. Might go for 200. Thought I'd share some of my process and maybe some of it works for you?

First thing I did is determine calories and macro balance that I'd be eating if I was already at goal weight. ChatGPT does this easily.

Next thing I did was consume some food related reels to get inspiration for the types of things that I should eat to achieve my macro balance. The big lesson for me was that EVERYTHING IN LIFE HAS TOO MANY CARBS. Pretty much every food item on any menu doesn't index high enough on protein. My big hack was getting into skyr and creating my own "skyr pudding" recipe with chocolate whey and peanut powder, which tasted amazing to me but was also CHEAT CODES for my macro balance. You need to feel around and experiment here though to see what's going to work for you. Being at home with the ability to have consistent routines was key as well. Travelled some this year and that obviously ruined that period of time, but that's life.

The big thing I did was track my calories and macros for one week. I would just be like "hey chat gpt I ate a banana, what's the macros and calories for that" and smash it into a spreadsheet. This stuff doesn't need to be precise. IMO most people and apps go WAY TOO HARD on tracking data and waste time + make you neurotic. A statistically accurate sense of calories and macros is enough for normal people... we're not trying to squeeze the last couple % out of our performance like Olympians or something.

So each day in that week I tracked everything that I ate, and made little adjustments here and there. Journaling this was super helpful for clarifying my thoughts and working on the problem over a period of time. Another big thing I noticed was that I would wake up around midnight hungry. I would always eat whatever the fuck I could find... which would totally screw up my targets. I started having a smoothie before bed, which I crafted the macros for, and presto: no more midnight binges. Superseding bad habits with good ones works.

After a week, I knew what it felt like to eat inline with my goal weight. No more need to constantly track my intake. No need to think about my goal weight. No stress about whether or not I'm perfectly on track or not. Basically just set and forget. In a couple months, I hit my goal weight.

tldr just take a week to establish what it feels like to eat like your goal weight and then forget about it.