Look up the YouTube series on that very topic from Renaissance Periodization. It helped me loss 30 pounds and keep them off for more than 6 months now.

Extreme low calorie diet are not sustainable for long, especially if you are starting out.

First thing first, count your calories for a week or two to get the baseline calorie consumption for your current weight. Try to not change your normal food consumption while taking your first baseline calories because it will make the first weight loss cycle more difficult than it needs to be.

Then, start by removing 250 calories from your diet and burn 250 calories every day for 6 to 9 weeks.

Then, go into maintenance where you slowly add a bit more food and stabilize your weight. If you see that you are gaining weight during the maintenance, just cut back a little bit and keep that calorie intake as your maintenance intake. That will become your calorie baseline for the next cycle.

Repeat until your goals are met. Don’t hesitate to take a longer maintenance break if you feel like it.

That will give you a sustainable way to lose weight and you will also learn to count calories without weighing everything you eat.

If you can easily cut 250 calories without any problem, try to cut more calories the next cycle, and see how it goes. If it’s too hard, then go back to 250/250 calories cut.

As for the food, I don’t know where you live, but nutritional yeast is a cheap way to add protein to any meals and add a cheesy flavor to the meal.

As for fat, cheap nuts or neutral oil can help meet your needs.

And for carbs, seasonal fruits and vegetables are usually cheaper, so go with that.

The only thing you should take from this post is that slow and steady is the name of the game. You are fighting millions of years of evolution, so it won’t be easy.

TLDR: slow and steady. Cut 250 cal from your diet and burn 250 calories from activity for 6-9 weeks. Maintain for the same amount of time. Repeat.