Help! No progress and losing motivation.

Congratulations. You've recognized that what you are doing is not working and accepted that you need to make some changes.

You may be finding yourself overeating in the evening because you've undereaten during the day. Try to redistribute your calories so that you eat more earlier in the day.

Another thing to consider is incorporating more exercise into your daily routine. You state that you are tired after work. Could you exercise in the morning? Can you exercise during your lunch break? Can you try to incorporate more steps during your work day? Would your family enjoy an evening stroll together?

You've got this - just be willing to experiment until you find a way to make it work.

Been there, done that. Firstly, this is normal! I would strongly suggest that you meal prep so that lunch, dinner, breakfast, snacks, and even late night random snacks are accounted for if you're dead set on sticking to 1200 calories a day. I'm no health expert so who am I to tell you what to do with your body? However, I would suggest (for morale) that you raise your goal to 1400 simply because if you do overeat, you won't feel guilty about logging or eating. Not only that but 1400 would seem to be a healthier caloric intake for someone to lose weight at your weight/height.

Your 5' 6" and 169 lbs. Plugging your numbers in a bmi chart gives you a bmi of about 27, just into the overweight category. Looking at tables, if you lost about 12 lbs you would be a normal weight, per bmi. 12 lbs is not much weight to lose at all. 1200 calories per day is simply too aggressive; trying to lose two lbs a week when you have so little to lose will leave you very, very hungry, and prone to overindulging. Which sounds exactly like what you are experiencing. It's ridiculously easy to overeat in the evenings and weekends and blow you entire weekly deficit. Try setting you goal to one lb
a week; that will give you a higher calorie allowance every day, leaving you less hungry, and more in control.

There is nothing wrong with "saving" calories for the evening (I do that myself, eating a small breakfast, if I bother about breakfast at all, and a lower calorie lunch, then a fairly large dinner and a good size evening snack - that's what works for me), but some people do better with more even distribution of calories throughout the day, and others still do best eating most of their calories earlier in the day. Honestly, I think the first fix here would be to be less aggressive so you have a better chance of maintaining your deficit, then you can tweak meal sizes and timing if need be.

Also, the foods you are eating during the day appear to be very low fat, and also pretty low on protein. Fat and protein are generally more satiating than carbs. If you eat very low calorie, but mostly carb meals during the day, of course you're ravenous come dinner time! I'd suggest getting a higher protein breakfast (eggs are fast, easy, versatile, and awesome), adding some meat or cheese to your lunchtime salad, and maybe planning for a protein packed afternoon snack, so that you aren't as hungry in the evening.

I know it seems counterintuitive to eat less by planning to eat more, but the fact is you are clearly struggling at 1200 cal per day; so much so that you are overeating and subsequently not losing at all. Better to plan to eat, say, 1500 cal per day, actually stick with it, and see a smaller, but *consistent*, loss each week, than to keep trying for such a low goal and ending up eating at (or above) maintenance and seeing no loss, right?

FWIW, I'm 5'7" 152 lbs and eat around 1600 calories a day, losing about a half lb per week. Yes it's slow, but I'm very close to goal (145), so I know it has to be slow. The nice thing about taking it slow is that you don't have to go hungry!

Not eating much during the day works for some people but not others. You may need to redistribute when you eat your calories to avoid overeating at night and going well over 1200 calories, which is probably happening if you aren't losing any weight. You may also want to consider upping your calories for a more moderate weight loss goal like others said. I'm assuming you have a 2lb/week goal considering your height and weight, given I am the same height and weigh less and get more calories than that with a 1lb/week goal, even with my MFP activity setting at sedentary.

As far as being too tired to walk more, honestly I felt the same way for a long time, but I just forced myself to do it for a while and now its become a habit. Even if I'm tired, I go for my nightly walk because if I don't I feel a lot worse about it. And honestly once I'm out there I don't notice nearly as much how tired I am. If I'm tired or its particularly late, it might be a shorter walk than normal but at least I still got out there. Additionally, if you eat more calories and/or redistribute when you are eating your calories, you may find that you have more energy at the end of the day for walking or other activities.