u/please_dont_pry

noticed i have been gaining weight again recently and was at the highest I've ever been a couple months ago. i recognized my relationship with food was getting really nasty and had me feeling like crap all the time. 

every time I've done CICO by finding and tracking food in an app I've always felt miserable because many of the foods i like to eat are really ridiculously tedious to track, having many ingredients that aren't easy to measure. and sometimes i like eating out. having to track my food like this had me constantly thinking about food which felt counterproductive, and it prevented me from enjoying some things because i knew it would be a pain to track them.

what I'm doing now is two main things. first thing is switching mostly to high protein and high fat. many of my meals are essentially carnivore/keto. this is expensive but so is junk food. when i don't know what to make, it's easy to pop some bacon in the oven or fry a burger patty with cheese. it tastes fine and it's satiating for a long time. when i treat bread and sweets like an occasional treat instead of a daily staple, i don't crave food as much. i also enjoy treat foods a lot more now that i don't eat them all the time. 

the second thing is keeping a rough calorie estimate in my head. checking labels, Google, and overestimating when I'm not sure. if I'm eating out, a good heuristic to me is that I'm probably consuming \~900 calories at my favorite spot, assuming i get a smaller meal with no sides or drinks. sometimes I'll take a picture, describe the food and ask a robot. it's probably not very accurate but an informed guess is better than nothing—when in doubt, i pick the higher number. i bet this averages out to be somewhat accurate over time. it feels easier to keep a running tally in my head than on my device for whatever reason, and by rounding everything up to the nearest 50kcal i can naturally eat at a slightly higher deficit than i plan for. i just plug my weight into chronometer now every so often to see what calorie goal i should aim for. 

I'm already halfway to my goal weight (roughly 25 out of 50lb down). it's feeling easier than it ever has, and I've struggled with my diet and being overweight for over a decade now. I'm really lazy but i am honest with myself so i needed an approach that relies more on rules of thumb, rough estimates, and keeping myself accountable. usually i can tell what the right choice is, and when it's ok to make the "wrong" one. i just wanted to put this out there for others who might be strugging in a similar way