But why make them your first resort? What have you done so far? How can we help you do it better?
If you've been slowly gaining with consistent habits, it doesn't take much restriction to go below maintenance calories.
Thanks guys for your responses!
I would definitely rather lose weight by changing my habits first instead of needing medication (which I don't even know is available here or how much it would cost), and I know that it is both as simple and as complicated as "eat less calories, use more calories" in order to get a caloric deficit.
As for what I have done so far, I guess the biggest change really is just not drinking. As for what I eat I definitely haven't been tracking in the past few weeks, but I have been motivated to make this a habit. I think it's easy to underestimate how many calories you eat and how "healthy" the meals are, but as a very general statement I have been eating "cleaner" than in the past several months. However, if I had to guess, I still eat a lot more carbs than I should. I don't eat snacks in between meals, and drinks that I have aren't sweet or have milk/sugar (mainly black coffee, hot tea, and water).
I think being able to share my experiences every so often here does make me want to do things better, and having support from my significant other helps a lot too. I still get an "itch" to drink and it is hard to suppress it though, so that makes me realize that I probably had an alcohol habit before too. I may still overeat sometimes, but again that's something that tracking could make easier to identify. I do notice that when I eat less during a meal I don't feel shitty or hungry later, so I'm thinking about just focusing on eating a little less carbs every few days over the course of several weeks.
As for exercise, currently I just walk around to try to reach 10k steps every day, but as soon as I get the chance I'm going to start lifting again. I also used to swim, so after I get back I could try to swim once or twice a week. Issue with both lifting and swimming is that both make me extremely hungry afterwards and though meat does sate the wendigo part of me, it's hard to eat slowly or controlled after a hard exercise session. Maybe the solution would be to give it half an hour after exercising, then eat slowly afterwards?