Diet that's reasonable

Yep. It’s as simple as this.

Cutting out or severely restricting junk carbs is the starting point for this. And that’s better for your long run health also.

By the way, sugar via gels or soda before a workout also count as junk carbs. Eat some good quality carbs several hours before your workout instead.

Get a food scale, and weigh and track everything you eat for a week or two using something like my fitness pal. This will help you determine when you are in calorie deficit. Also, this could be eye opening on how many calories you actually consume.

Not just this, but where the calories are and aren’t coming from. I’ve been amazed at how high and low some foods are. I was getting hundreds of calories from some little sausages, but boiled new potatoes you can have quite a lot of. The difference between full fat and low fat milk is fairly minor, but the difference between full fat and low fat coconut milk is astronomical.

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I started eating nuts as a snack instead of a bowl of cereal. Nuts are a good source of carbs, protein and fats, but they are very calorifically dense. 1 cup of almonds is about 800 calories!

You looked good at the race!

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Anyone who hasn’t and wants to lose weight, needs to track macros at least for a period of time. As much as anything, its to educate what foods contain what. Ice cream for example, is probably the worst possible thing you could in terms of satiety.

Also - after a while you stop craving crap food. I would rather eat black beans and brocolli than mcdonalds as long as you cook it in a way that is tasty.

I started 2010 at 225lbs, and by the September has got down to 180. I took a simple approach, I logged my calories, consistently and accurately for the whole period, aiming for a 1000cal deficient per day. Alcohol was limited to weekends only, and I looked to eat as much protein as possible as I didn’t feel as hungry. I had to get used to going to bed feeling hungry. I rode consistently, though not following a plan. I’m not sure I could have followed a TR plan on 1500calories a day…
It didn’t take long before I could take an accurate guess at what I’d consumed, however I’d committed to logging everything for a year and so did. Even now when my weight start to creep up, I log calories for a week or so and spot where I’m adding in those pointless calories. Makes it easier to chop them out.
The interesting thing is after a couple of months, my diet had completely changed. I shyed away from the junk, knowing the negative impact it would have. The weight was falling off, and I felt great. 9 years on my diet remains pretty sound and I can float around 180lbs without much effort.
I guess I’m saying measure it, track it, and in time it becomes a habit and sticks. Given you’ll look and feel better, it even comes with rewards…