Calories: Strict or casual?

I've always been EXTREMELY strict when loosing weight. My very first cut I counted calories and estimated portions and this was about 15 years ago. The next cut I had a scale etc. It always worked. I would drop 2 lbs every single week like clockwork. I did a few bodybuilding contests and it was the same thing. Very structured meals and eating mostly the same thing every day. It does work! But the problem, at least for me, is that it's not maintainable. For 12-16 weeks at a time I would not have a drop of alcohol, not party, not eat out, barely see my friends, etc. cause my life revolved around my diet and workouts. Cheating was not in my vocabulary. Doing this for 2-3 months a year is doable but whole year? Misery!

This time around I'm doing a very casual cut in comparison. Generally hitting my macros but if I go out to dinner and am off a bit here and there I don't beat myself up over it. Same with the occasional drunken night. I STILL track everything but if I blow my macros a day or two here and there it's not the end of the world. I also don't pay attention to meal timing at all. Needless to say I'm losing slower, and not as consistently but I'm still seeing progress and I could TOTALLY do this year round. In fact, once I hit about 8-9% bf I'm going to try to maintain it this time around instead of slowly reverting to my usual 12-15%.

If it works for you and is healthy, I say go for it. I go between strict and casual all the time depending on my mood.

Casual. I tried doing the same amount of calories every day, but I'd end up forcing in food that I didn't want to eat one day, then going to bed hungry a couple days later. My hunger varies, so eating to numbers doesn't work that well for me. If I feel like overeating, I do. I'll usually do extra exercise to make up for it, but now always.

I watch my weeks and months to be sure I'm doing okay, calories-wise, but day-to-day, I'm pretty casual.

I'm fairly strict Mon-Fri so I can be very casual on the weekends.

Casual. My calories vary day-to-day, but as long as it mostly adds up by the end of the week, I don't worry. Caveat: I'm back on here after getting a little *too* casual. I kept the weight off for about a year, but started back into bad eating habits while dealing with life stress. I started gaining weight again, so I'm back on here to remind myself what my portions are supposed to look like!

I have lost 30lbs and I did it by a strict diet . but....I allowed myself one cheat day.keeps my sanity lol and due to my dieting I found myself not even eating as much of the foods I "love" .

I was quite strict when actively losing, although there'd be exceptions and I'm fine with moving calories around within a week to make room for dinners out. But for me, hunger seems to not vary that much and be more based on habit than anything else, so eating based on meal time and what portions seem appropriate vs. how much I might feel like I could eat works better for me. Invariably if I eat a reasonable portion size (based on calories) it will end up being enough.

I'm much more casual when maintaining -- I often don't log at all, although I continue to watch portions and do much better when I don't really snack. (The hardest thing was when I was snacking a lot because I was on a biking trip and wanted to continue eating that way afterwards. It was almost like starting over.)

Both! In my almost 3 years I have been strict for the most part but have gone casual many periods. Then I "plateau" and go strict again to break it. Never once have I gone "F**k" it mode and I never intend to.

Little of both?

I plan all my meals the day in advance, so in that sense I know exactly what I'll have for each meal. However, I usually use the logs as a guide to weigh out the portions, and I don't go back and correct the logs to be exactly what I consumed. E.g. if I am going to weigh out 8.6 ounces of milk and call that one serving, I count anything from 8.00 to 8.99 as "one serving", and assume it averages out.

Likewise, I don't weigh things like slices of pizza or anything, I figure again, they average out over time. My goal is to be both accurate and simple, and sometimes the latter requires some small compromises to the former. I log very little on the day of - almost everything is pre-logged and not edited later.

Strict, but only in the coming under the numbers. I will jump my butt up IMMEDIATELY and hop on my treadmill if I go over to make up for it. But if I'm a little under and I'm just not hungry, so be it. I'm not gonna eat if I'm not hungry, that's what got me into this situation in the first place....