What's my problem?

Have your Friday night. Just don't extend Friday into Saturday and Sunday. You are going to have to create a new normal.

You CAN eat McDonald's or go out for dinner on the weekend, BUT you have to plan for it, log it, and adjust the rest of your daily intake (and extra calorie burns via exercise) around it accordingly. If you don't log all your food, it's very easy to avoid being accountable. If I know I'm going to have junk food, booze or take out, I log it first thing in the morning (I've got wine and cheesecake on the menu today, for example), then plan the rest of my day around it. I might end up going over a little, but it won't be a blowout because I'll have a plan in place to manage it. I also find that logging it helps keep the indulgence in check a little - because I really do like to eat - like all day long - and if one giant bunch of fried food at the end of the day is going to blow my daily goal, I'll probably scale it back a bit so I can still eat something else earlier in the day.

This! I agree.

About how many calories are you aiming for? it could be too little for your body. To lose weight you need to be in the magic area between your BMR (what your body needs to function) and your TDEE (what your body uses in a day). According to TDEE-20% you should be eating right around 1600 cals.

I think what I'm really getting at is how to stick with it. How to stay motivated and not cave in and eat McD's. How to live normally. My husband and I go out every Friday. Tonight it's PF Chang's. I understand that if I eat McD's, I will not lose. I can work on avoiding that, but I also can't spend every day on my diet and not living a regular life with my husband (i.e. eating out).

You can still go out and lose weight. I go out usually 1-2 times per week. It involves more work though. I always look ahead of time (if possible) and find a few options I can have. I usually don't eat everything, as its a lot of food. Or the restaurant does the calorie count for a serving when the meal is two (PF Changs and Pei Wei do this plus the entrees don't include rice). If I don't have time to look beforehand I use my phone to look it up either online or on MFP. If it's a local place I use a similar menu item at a chain. It's not exact but it must be working because I like local places and am still losing weight.

It sounds to me like you are depriving yourself during the week which may be leading to over eating or unhealthy choices on the weekends. I think mentally you feel like your food intake during the week is a 'diet', which you don't want to be on during the weekend. I would suggest reading 'The Beck Diet Solution', I think it will have a lot of good suggestions to break you out of that mentality.

In the mean time, I would eat a little more during the week. Build in some 'cheats' or 'indulgences', that way when you get to the weekend you're not dying for all of the bad stuff, and it will be easier to say no to the McD's or choose something moderately healthy on the menu.

You said that you want to live a 'normal' life, which implies that you don't feel like you have it now. My suggestion would be to take a hard look at what you're doing and cut out the things you're not willing to do forever. Don't want to go to the gym four times a week? Then only go two times. Find some kind of fitness you actually enjoy, like maybe going for walks with your husband or pets. Hate eating oatmeal in the morning? Play around and find something that makes you feel good. Plan your how week out (including your weekend) and try very hard to stick to it. Then re-evaluate and see where you had trouble and those are the places that you need to spend some time problem-solving.

Good luck, and don't give up, you're worth it!

You CAN eat McDonald's or go out for dinner on the weekend, BUT you have to plan for it, log it, and adjust the rest of your daily intake (and extra calorie burns via exercise) around it accordingly. If you don't log all your food, it's very easy to avoid being accountable. If I know I'm going to have junk food, booze or take out, I log it first thing in the morning (I've got wine and cheesecake on the menu today, for example), then plan the rest of my day around it. I might end up going over a little, but it won't be a blowout because I'll have a plan in place to manage it. I also find that logging it helps keep the indulgence in check a little - because I really do like to eat - like all day long - and if one giant bunch of fried food at the end of the day is going to blow my daily goal, I'll probably scale it back a bit so I can still eat something else earlier in the day.

I get this, I honestly do. I've done it before. The problem lies in real life. You can't always plan it. So I'll be eating ok all day, and then something will happen at home, and we choose to go to McD's. This is actually a rarity, but it did happen this week. Today I do know I'm having PF Chang's tonight, so I'm trying to eat accordingly. I cook a lot at home, and that gets hard logging-wise. I made pizza last night, now I have to go use the recipe tool to figure out the cals!

The thing is, you CAN plan it, even in real life. If you're "choosing" to go to McD's you could have just as easily made a different choice. It's completely within your control. As for when you cook, I cook pretty much everything from scratch at home too. I plan my menus for the week and so can either figure out the recipe in advance with the recipe tool, or else I enter the ingredients as I prepare the food, so that I can adjust my serving size to fit my goals before I eat it. All these challenges you're presenting are really just opportunities to be more organized and mindful! It is totally achievable.

I want to lose 10 lbs!! I thought the pretzels were ok due to the calorie content. At least I counted them, so didn't go crazy on them. How about popcorn?

Any food is okay. You don't have to cut anything out entirely to lose weight. But consider, is there something else you could eat that would help you feel more satisfied and that would give you more nutrients? Pretzels are pretty much starch and sodium with little else. Add some cheese, and you have a snack with protein and a bit of fat, calcium, etc, which will help you feel satisfied longer. Feeling hungry isn't an indication of doing well on your diet. Popcorn is a bit better choice, as it has more fiber, but beware of all the butter flavor stuff - it's usually unhealthy fats and stuff. It's okay, just don't overdo it (I go for Act II Butter when I want microwave popcorn, it's not so loaded as Butter Lovers but tastes good)

The other thing I see as a possible culprit is that you are trying to cut back too far. Your diary says you get 1200 calories a day. As active as you are, I think that's too low. I'm 35 and 5'0" and I aim for 1600 calories a day (don't look at this week, I haven't logged anything. Needed a week off! :laugh: ). With only 20 lbs to lose, you can't expect to sustain more than 1 lb a week of loss; those who lose 2 lbs a week or more regularly are generally those who have a lot more to lose. Do you eat back your exercise calories? You should, at least some of them. Sometimes when you don't eat enough, your metabolism slows down and makes it harder for you to lose. It's not really "starvation mode" (I hate that term anyway), but it can happen on a small scale, which can derail efforts. The other thing is that, if you deprive yourself too much, you're more likely to blow it on the weekends. Like others said, budget within your daily allowance for a few indulgences a week, and you'll probably find that you can stick to it better on the weekend as well.