How many calories should I eat a day?

Planning meals ahead is key to staying on track. Weekends are the hardest so they need more planning.

e.g I'm a big one for having a take out on a Saturday night, so I bank calories during the week to account for the extra 500 over and above my usual calories for then. It works wonderfully.

We can tweak calorie counting to suit our own needs.

You should look at the Keto diet. The diet if done right it stops the cravings. FYI, its a complex diet to manage but is working for allot of people. Look at your carbs and insulin spikes. Watch your blood sugar. you may be pre-diabetic. Cut way back on sugar and simple carbs.

Ultimately, when you have reached maintenance you will want to share the same meals as your family. As long as you don't have any allergy/intolerance issues theres no reason why you can't continue eating with the family while you loose weight. Please don't make things more difficult than they need be.

Sometimes people starting on a calorie restriction particularly for the first time benefit from calculating what their current calorie intake is. When you know the portion size you usually have you can then look for less complicated ways to make the food you enjoy less calorific. You could try giving yourself more protein or vegies/fibre over all with fewer potatoes, one slice of bread rather than two, one biscuit not two, that sort of thing. Someone starting out on a calorie restriction should find simple steps like this will make for long term benefits. As you learn more about the values of foods you could move on to change recipes to a more healthy format for everyone, not in a rush, in your own time.

Working at weight loss, while still using the meals you share with the children will not adversely effect their relationship with food. All too often healthy prepubescent girls can start to think, I mustn't eat this or that its bad, when its the amount they need not the food itself.

Calorie banking. I think means holding over some calories from your mid week days so you can increase your calories for the weekend days or some do something similar for special events, parties, weddings and the like.

Keep it simple.

A huge amount of hunger is psychological. It may be that you're craving and bingeing because you think you're 'missing out' on foods you like, or just because you expect to be craving things.

First, remember to allow yourself a little of the things you're craving. Want chocolate? OK - figure out how to fit a single chocolate or part of a bar into your calories, put that much onto a little plate, take it away into another room and eat it slowly, savouring every little bit. Same for anything else you really want.

Secondly, you need to 'forget' that you're hungry. Distract yourself from it! I find that going out for a short walk when I'm hungry can work really well. Or starting a tricky new task at work. If I stop thinking about food and hunger, my hunger usually subsides.

Good luck!

You should first calculate your TDEE
That should be your maintenance calories.
If you want to loose weight you should eat bellow that. How much bellow is individual and needs some fine tuning. I do my best around TDEE - 400cal. That way I feel good with minor hunger moments that quickly disappear.
If I go bellow that next day I feel huge hunger.

That being said...I made my cuts in steps.
- First I stopped eating most of the junk food...at this moment my sugar levels were going crazy, so I couldn't cut immediately with calories. So, I said to myself that it's ok that I eat how much I want, just not those highly processed food. I would eat a lot of fruit, nuts, milk to satisfy cravings.
- Once when my sugar levels get more balanced I set goal to avoid snacking and random eating. I could eat any amount of food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, but I was avoiding snacking.
- Third step was portion control and calorie counting (where I am at the moment). Now I eat that TDEE - 400 and feeling good for now.

Maybe those 2 first steps were unnecessary, but they made my calorie restriction much easier.

1/2 pound/week is 250 calories/day below TDEE, so your goal would be 1895. Now bear in mind, this leaves little room for errors in your logging (either in measuring or incorrect database entries) so you'll want to be very tight in your logging until you get a feel for the rate you're actually losing.