I don't know how to diet, help

You don't have much weight to lose, so your deficit is too extreme. Try calculating your calorie needs to lose half a pound a week, instead.

Just to confirm the advice given above:
- you don't have to do 5:2 if you don't want to
- you don't have to eat only 1200 calories to lose weight

Choose a slower rate of loss, eat more on a daily basis (instead of binging on the weekend) and you will get there.
I've lost 40 lbs so far by choosing 0.5lb per week as my weight loss rate, eating well over 1200 calories and generally not feeling deprived/not binging.

To give you an idea why trying to lose 2 lbs per week is too agressive:

you need to eat 3500 lbs less to lose 1lbs.
If you want to lose 2 lbs per week you need to eat 7000 calories less in a week, or 1000 per day
If you want to lose 1lbs per week you need to eat 3500 calories less in a week, or 500 per day
If you want to lose 0.5 lbs per week you need to eat 1750 calories less in a week, or 250 per day

Now you don't say how old you are or how active. But your body might need 1700-2000 calories of food per day to neither gain or lose weight. Subtract the daily calories from this number to get to the calories you need to eat to reach your goal.
For 2 lbs per week this would be 700-1000 calories of food per day
For 1 lbs per week this would be 1200-1500 calories of food per day
For 0.5 lbs per week this would be 1450-1750 calories of food per day

You see that your goal depends a lot on how much food you get, but also on how fast you can actually lose weight. MFP would never give you less than 1200 calories per day because that's considered to be very unhealthy. Thus 2lbs per week is off the table. 1lbs per week might just about be possible, but you say yourself that you're hungry and miserable, and then start to binge. Thus lose weight slowly, feel good, and actually reach your goal!

n_green_l wrote: »

Thanks everyone

I want to be at the heaviest 10 stone 6 by September, long term I would like to be 10 stone/10stone 3 but I know that is going to be extremely hard as I havent been that for 10 years. I'm in my thirties.
I don't exercise as much as I'd like, with lockdown I have been struggling to find motivation to exercise at all because I like going to the gym.

I end up in the same old habits, eating well during week and then binging. I am partial to alcohol at the weekend well so I am going to start cutting that down as it throws my diet out the window.

I always thought doing 0.5lb wouldn't work and I wouldn't lose as too many calories, so always did one restrictive diet after another.

What I'm doing now isn't working either, stayed the same for 6 months despite that so think I'm going to give it a go. It says to lose 0.5lb i need 1570 calories, I will set it at 1500 calories and up my exercise again....

Maybe this will be more sustainable and I will actually see results if I'm not binging..

Honestly, it doesn't need to be "extremely hard", IMO. It takes a level of commitment to the process (i.e. to habits), but not necessarily extreme self-denial and misery.

I'm not writing this to be mean-spirited, sincerely, but rather to paint a different picture of possibilities. You report this:

n_green_l wrote: »

I am trying to get to 10 stone 6, I'm 5ft 6, 11stone 3 and haven't been able to shift the pounds since Christmas. I haven't been 10 stone 6 for three years.

I am trying the 5:2 but it's making me obsessed with food and I'm already wishing the day away today.

I tried to do 1200 calories a day with normal calorie counting before but end up binging at the weekend because I'm so hungry. I'm working from home so apart from trying to walk lots I would put myself as sedentary. Mfp says I need 1200 calories to lose 2lb a week.

I haven't seen results in over 6 months, I guess I need some motivation. Do I stick with 5:2 or do something else as I'm so fed up!

I'm around your height (5'5"), a little lighter (around 9st 2 to 9st 4 lately), but much older (64). I've been calorie counting for a long time, almost 5 years, lost around 50 pounds at age 59-60, maintained but with a little very slow upward drift, then - coincidentally - around 6 months ago, decided to lose a few vanity pounds, very similar to the circumstances you find yourself in.

I do have an advantage you don't: As a very experienced calorie counter, I have a very clear idea what my maintenance calories are (to neither gain nor lose), and counting is no longer time consuming or difficult for me like it was when I first started (takes maybe 10 minutes a day, now - time well invested). That's a huge advantage, but I'll point out that I had to learn and practice to get there.

During the 6 months where you were not losing, depriving, binging, stressing, obsessed with food, I was trying to eat most days around 150-250 calories below maintenance most days, maybe a little lower if I wasn't especially hungry that day, occasionally a little over, sometimes a lot over. (Keep in mind that US Thanksgiving and Christmas were in there, and my birthday was, too. I ate freely some days, and I know how to eat, and enjoy it - zero guilt.) It would be a very rare week when there was no alcohol, but I admit it normally wasn't lots, maybe one or occasionally two at a restaurant meal or social event, once or twice a week.

Over the 6 months, there were times I didn't lose at all, there were times when I lost slowly. As long as no major back-tracking happens, I'm fine with all of that. Most of the time, even when I was losing weight, I wouldn't even have been able to see that it was happening without a weight trending app (I use Libra for Android): No scale reward, just the daily ups and downs slooooowlllly trending lower. Even then, the difference might not show up for multiple weeks.

I'm a rower, so Winter is not my highest exercise season, and stay-at-home orders have extended that level of (in)activity. I'm sedentary outside of exercising, but exercising when I feel like it, though not consistently. (I have practice at estimating my exercise, too, so I can understand how to eat with and without it). I know meals I can eat that are filling, tasty, nutritious, keep me reasonably happy most days without exercise; or, I can eat a little more (or have a extra pint of nice craft beer, or some other indulgence) if I have those extra calories.

It was more about structure and habits, not motivation and discipline. (I totally suck at motivation & discipline. )

Over the past 6 months, my weight trend has gone from the mid/upper 130s pounds (9st 10 to 12 region) to the current 128-130 pound zone (9st 2 to 4). So, I've lost something like 8-10 pounds. It wasn't stressful, it wasn't painful, it didn't suck. I ate the way I like to eat, just a little less, and pretty consistently.

Some people seem to almost enjoy the pain of dieting, as if they romanticize that sense of struggling and fighting toward challenging goals with difficult and noble efforts. I don't like that at all. Don't like struggle. Don't like drama.

As far as the "how to diet" (eating for weight loss), this is what I did to lose the 50-some pounds in the first place, what I did to mostly maintain (with a little up-drift ) for 4+ years afterward, and what I've done for the past 6 months:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

Besides that eating plan, I exercise when I feel like it (I often do, because I put a priority on finding ways of being active that I actually enjoy), I calorie bank (eat a little less most days to eat a little more indulgently occasionally), weigh daily first thing in the morning, use my weight trending app, weigh and log my food (most of the time, not 100%, at this point, though it was 100% for the first year or so). For me, it's pretty easy, not very stressful.

As you say, you could maybe consider whether a different approach would work for you. My approach may not be your approach: I think we need to tailor intelligently to our own personalities and preferences. But I'm quite certain that there's another method that's possible, that isn't deprivation, binging, stress, and other unpleasantness.

Best wishes, sincerely!