Eat what you love and lose

yes and no. A caloric deficit is what attributes to weight loss. In my personal experience, I am most successful when I preplan and pre-log (log it in MFP the day before) and stick to it - making an effort to hit my macros for fat, protein and carbs. This works for me and makes me feel awesome! I still eat cookies and ice cream etc but within my deficit. I had girl scout cookies yesterday and stayed in my deficit. Now, the no part of this is that sometimes I try to 'wing it'...smh...it ends so badly...so so badly. I don't lose well that way. I think most people here on MFP will say that flexible dieting or a well balanced diet is the most sustainable and thus, the most successful. I would agree. No deprivation. That's no way to live. So, whatever I want - yes, but not how much of it I would usually want

Of course you can fit in foods that you love and lose weight. It's all about balance. Of course, it takes time and experimentation to find the mix that works best for you. But as long as you're eating an otherwise varied and healthy diet, there's no reason why you can't enjoy things like pizza, ice cream, burgers, doughnuts, or anything that suits your fancy.

I fit sweets in just about every day, and wine or beer many days. Yesterday I had Chick Fil A. Tonight we're grilling burgers. I try to hit my macros and eat lots of veggies daily, too. It's working just fine for me.

Basically, although of course I occasionally want to eat something that doesn't fit in my day or more than my calories. Also, what I want to eat is influenced, in part, by what meets my goals for nutrition, as well as taste.

That said, I'm very much against the deprivation approach, and realizing that I could lose weight while still eating a normal, varied diet that is delicious and not feeling hungry or deprived was important to me. I do love lots of foods that turn out to be helpful for creating lower calorie meals (vegetables, fish), and I also explored different ways to cook things and checking out what's locally available at the farmer's market (not much currently, of course) and stuff like that, to get excited about my options. But I also rarely eat boneless, skinless chicken breast (I roast it with skin and bones and eat lamb and steak and pork chops too, among other things), and I fit in chocolate and ice cream. The main thing is that with a calorie budget I find myself much more picky as to what I will spend calories on -- no eating something mediocre at the office just because it appears in the break room or I'm procrastinating so raid the candy jar!

we have to be mindful of what choices we make to eat and how much we decide to eat- we CAN still lose weight and enjoy life!!!!!!

I'm not really into the macros and micros. For me it's about the CICO. If I have the calories for it and want to eat it, than I do.

The main thing though is it forces me to budget my calories, so I know if I blow a ton of calories on something, I will end up eating less of something else later on.

Like if I eat a 250 calorie brick of rice cripsy treat for a snack during the day, it will mean that come dinner time I will have a bit less than normal and I either eat a smaller dinner, or find some extra low calorie items to eat, say like pickles.

So far 30 pounds down since the first of the year.

One thing I have found that I am less inclined to go to fast food now because most fast food is high calories and I can "spend" those calories for much bigger amount of food.

Eat what I want? Yes.

Eat how much I want? No.

You don't have to cut ANYTHING out of your diet unless you've developed a medical reason to do so. You just have to make sure you're not getting too much. Now, this does have the effect of you swapping out some high-calorie/low-nutrient options to low-calorie/high-nutrient options that you can have more of, like eating more veggies instead of french fries or what have you, but you can still have the french fries. Just need to account for them in your diary.

Remember, 200 calories of candy is much less food in terms of BULK than 200 calories of peas. Nothing wrong with having the candy, but if it doesn't fill you up very full and you end up eating more later because of that, might want to adjust that snack to something that will keep you full for longer, and save the candy for dessert or something.

To a certain extent, yes I can eat whatever I want with MFP and lose.
Sometimes certain foods will send me into a binge and I've learned the best thing to do, for the rest of those days, is to cut out carbs and sugar or I won't stop eating.
But other days, I'm completely content with 1 piece of pizza, half an order of French fries or 8 sour patch kids.

Yes and no. I eat foods I like, but I don't eat the high calorie stuff every single day (or very small portions).

The foods I really love are all calorific, so I have to really scrimp and save to be able eat the amount i want. I'd rather go without then eat a tiny sliver of mud cake or a 35g bowl of froot loops, or 12.333555666 chips that will just leave me wanting more... When I eat these things I go all out, or I don't bother at all.