Discouraged

Some things to consider:

- restriction can be counter-productive. Peanut butter, fruits, nuts, beans, even the valley oat bar are good things to eat. Especially if the things you cut out aren't things you're planning to give up forever you're just making it more difficult to shift into maintenance when you incorporate those things back in. Balance is key, and weighing and tracking can help you see at least how much you're eating and how to work it all.
- 150lbs may or may not be a healthy weight for you, without knowing your height it's hard to say if weight loss is even appropriate. If you have a small amount of weight to go (15lbs or less), you're going to have to accept that it's not only going to come off slowly but it's also going to require you to be super precise in your logging. A 250cal deficit which would be the only appropriate deficit to lose that little bit of weight can easily get wiped out by small logging errors.
- 1200cal is seldom appropriate for everyone, and can be hard. Consider if this is perhaps too extreme of a deficit you're attempting. Also you shouldn't be making it a habit of going under 1200cal.
- Exercising until you're sore, aiming to eat 1200cal or less, expressing disappointment over eating things like fruit and nuts, are all worrying warning signs. Please seek out a professional to help, especially as you've said that you struggle with binge eating.
- Consider also that if it's your shape that you're not happy with even though you're in a healthy weight range, recomp might be more appropriate than weight loss.

Lastly, you're not a failure. You just need to figure out the things that are going to work for you.

Taking such an extreme and restrictive approach, going directly to the lowest calorie target recommended for women, and cutting out so many foods which is not required for weight loss, is almost certainly going to result in failure for someone who has binge tendencies.

You need to work toward a moderate and sustainable approach to weight loss. Depending on your stats you likely should be aiming to lose 0.5 to 1lb/week and no more. That may yield a calorie target higher than 1200 but even then, the calorie target is a NET goal and if you exercise you should be eating those calories back.

Why are you cutting out dairy, meat, wheat/gluten, potatoes, etc? All of these can be part of a healthy diet. Even the refined sugar and “junk food” can be part of a healthy diet in moderation. Cutting all of those things out, with no medical reason to do so - is totally unnecessary for weight loss. Plan your days within your calorie allotment - log everything as accurately and honestly as possible, and find ways to fit in foods you enjoy and find satiating.

These are the foundations to lasting, sustainable, healthy weight loss that can carry you through to maintenance.

Dilvish wrote: »

Going over your caloric daily goal is absolutely normal.

It happens to all of us. The important thing to recognize is that sustained weight loss is a matter of changing habits versus a restrictive diet.

Weight loss is a journey, not a destination. A lot of people obsess over a target weight and date which ultimately fails because once they are reached, they go back to the same eating habits and exercise less.

Find a program that suits you for life. Exercise activities can be fun and enjoyable so find ones that are. Eating healthy simply means avoiding crap like refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, packaged and processed food and fast food.

You are doing everything you need to, just lighten up a bit. The first thing you did was recognize that you need to change your eating habits and that's fantastic. You also get regular exercise which is also fantastic. Just remember that healthy weight loss and maintaining the loss is a slow process and can take months to adapt a program that you feel comfortable in.

You are on the right path. Stick to it and stop worrying...you'll do great!

Most of this post is reasonable, helpful and encouraging but the bit in bold, calling food “crap” when a person is already taking extreme measures and restrictive unnecessarily, isn’t... not to mention that there is no need to cut out any of those things from a weight loss perspective and when consumed in moderation can all be part of eating a healthy diet.