Adjusting to healthier eating

I felt like I was hungry all the time, whether I was heavy and eating whatever I wanted, or losing weight and eating within my calories. I decided to stick with option B to reach my goals.
I agree that you should make sure 1500 is the right calorie goal for you.
The good news is you don't have to cut out Cheezits if they fit in your calories.

I'm also 5'6", very sedentary, and was 217lbs when I joined MFP. I set my goal at 1500 to start with, and ate chocolate nearly every day (but just a small piece!) until I gradually learned to control my cravings. I also ate pizza, burgers, bacon, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and plenty of other things that many people think they should cut out - I just didn't eat as much of them, or as often, as I used to.

I started to cook more, too (helped by the fact that I was unemployed and couldn't buy all the convenience foods I used to buy), and increased the amount of "healthier" foods I ate, but overall my diet was quite similar to how I've always eaten. Just less of it. I knew that radically changing my diet wouldn't have worked, and I would have felt deprived and given up very quickly. I learned not to call foods "good" or "bad", just "worth it" and "not worth it"!

It took me almost two years to reach 150lbs, and as my calorie limit dropped (smaller bodies need less calories) I found it harder to stick to, so I changed my goal to lose 1/2lb per week rather than 1lb. This is more manageable, but still difficult at times! And I still sometimes get cravings - I just learned to either distract myself with something else, or to make a conscious decision to eat what I wanted knowing what effect it would have on my goals. (Hint: not much, in the grand scheme of things.) I've had many (many!) days where I've eaten well over my limit, and even gone way over my maintenance calories. But I've also had enough days that were at or just under my limit that I still lost weight. I've spent most of this year maintaining between roughly 146 and 149, and am now trying to lose the last few pounds that I'd like to see gone.

It's very early days for you, so try to stick with it. If you're used to eating as much as you want, then of course it's going to be hard at the start. But if you really want to lose the weight, you have to be determined. Just don't make it harder than it needs to be. No, a splurge with pizza or ice cream won't ruin your progress - unless you do it all the time. Make it fit into your calories if you can - a couple of slices of pizza with a salad, rather than the whole pie. Or if you really want the whole pie, find a smaller, lower calorie one, and go for it - but eat lightly for your other meals of the day, and expect to see a slight (temporary) bump in your weight for a couple of days or so afterwards.

You really can eat whatever you want - just not as much as you might want!

(Standard disclaimer: This is not to say that nutrition is not important - of course it is, and a steady diet of nothing but chocolate (for the sake of argument) is rarely good for anyone. The majority of reasonable human beings are able to understand this and will eat a varied and mostly nutritious diet with room for treats. )

Yes it does get easier and yes you do get used to eating smaller portions but it is so much more satisfying to lose weight at a slower pace and not feel so deprived.

Losing weight does not have to be a big struggle, a massive fight. Yes there will be days when it's hard. Days when it's really really hard. Days you'll feel miserable and deprived and all you want to do is bin it all in and eat all the food. But the trick is to not let those days win, because as long as the majority of the time, you feel satisfied and full on your calories, then it's worth it. My point is that you're much more likely to stick to your diet if you eat enough calories to actually fill you up.

When I first started I did the classic "I'm eating 1200kcal a day and exercising 3 days a week and I'm so hungry all the time". And I burnt out. I was grumpy, irritable, tired, had difficulty concentrating, was hungry all the time, craved chocolate (I'd never craved chocolate before), and was forever disappointed in myself for not always reaching my target. And then one day I just felt super dizzy while training, and had to sit out recover. Essentially I'd just not been eating enough. I love training, but I hadn't been eating enough to actually fuel my workouts and it was negatively affecting my training and I didn't want that. I upped my calories target and I've not had a problem since. I was making myself miserable with my diet, so I changed it so I wasn't. I'm now happier, more satisfied, and importantly, still losing weight. Yes I still have days were I hate it, and desperately want to eat everything, but they're rare and more manageable.

I always find it amusing how pizza is something that people so often say that they're going to give up. I eat pizza almost every week (shop bought). Mostly I fit it into my calorie goal. Sometimes it means I go over my goal, but not enough to completely cancel out my daily deficit. I'm saying that you can totally eat pizza, and still lose weight.