So hard

That's what she said...

Oh, cravings. You need to address them in a coordinated effort, or else you'll be spinning your wheels.

First, make sure you are properly nourished. Don't eat less calories than the amount corresponding to a weekly loss of 1% of your body weight.

Then, set your protein goal to 0.8 grams and fat goal to 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight at your normal/goal weight. Regard these numbers as minimums, but don't be afraid of carbs. Eat to hit your calorie goal.

Log correctly (weigh everything you eat, and you can weigh liquids too), and check entries before you log, and log everything. A properly setup diary will steer you towards a balanced diet. A balanced diet will be quite easy to adhere to.

Then, eat a varied diet. Have some different food from all the food groups every day, and choose some different foods every time you grocery shop. A varied diet will give you a range of all the nutrients you need, and help stabilize your appetite.

Eat food you like. You will want to get in proper nourishment and also taste that appeal to you. You need to do this for a long time (maintenance will take the rest of your life), so you have to make an effort to make it effortless. (Quite zen, that one.)

If you can cook, do that, or teach yourself how. It doesn't have to be very advanced to be effective.

Doing this for a couple of weeks will take care of the majority of your cravings. If they persist, consider the following: Do your cravings increase when you eat what you crave, so that you end up eating more and more? Or do they increase when you tell yourself you can't have any, and try to stay away, but you are satisfied by just a small taste? If you (mostly) feel you belong to the first group, stop buying and keeping around those trigger foods. If you don't have access, you can't eat. If you are in the second group, plan to include small amounts regularly.

Prelogging in your diary is a good idea to see what you're doing before you've done it. It can make you more aware of your food choices and help you make better ones. Highly recommended.

Also aim to get 8 hours of undisturbed sleep every night, de-stress, and exercise without overdoing it. Do something fun every day.

jasonforrester995 wrote: »

not sure what are the correct levels of protein carbs etc for a day does anyone know how to work that out?

kommodevaran wrote: »

set your protein goal to 0.8 grams and fat goal to 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight at your normal/goal weight. Regard these numbers as minimums, but don't be afraid of carbs. Eat to hit your calorie goal.

This means that you take your goal weight (let's say it's 180 pounds) and multiply that with 0.8 - this is 144, so you set your protein goal to the 5 percent increment that is closest to this number. Do the same with fat - 0.5 times 180 is 90 - set your fat goal to the 5 percent increment that is closest to this number. The rest will be carbs to get to 100%. But the most important thing is to set an appropriate calorie goal, and log correctly. Details like macros won't mean *kitten* if you don't have the big things in place and you don't know what you are doing.

jasonforrester995 wrote: »

What is the 5% increment number?

When you have set your calories right, go here, using the web version, not the app, if the functionality isn't implemented in the app:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals/daily_nutrition_goals
Macronutrients will already have the default values set by MFP. You CAN use them. If you want to change them, open the drop-down menu for each of them in turn. You will see that the alternatives are in 5% increments. Since you can't set your goals in grams (without paying for Premium or installing a free addon), you have to pick a percentage; pick whatever get the number of grams of each macronutrient closest to the number you calculated. Then click "save changes".