Losing weight by diet alone

I'm interrupting my normal once-a-week postings (remember back when we pretty much all posted daily?) for this imporant whine:

While I know it's possible to lose weight by diet alone, it really, really, really sucks and I don't know why anyone would choose this approach.

It's what I've been trying for a mere two weeks, and while I've so far been successful (of course my weight went back down to 148.4 after weigh-in day this week; today, alarmingly, I was 146 but I KNOW that's wrong, but let's assume that in two weeks I've lost two or slightly more pounds) I find myself longingly reading restaurant menus online, and drooling over pictures of food in magazines.

It was quite depressing when I realized this week that the Daily Plate still had my age at 40 and my weight at 150. When I upped my age to 42, lowered my weight a bit, and checked "sedentary" as my activity level (which by their definition I am--seated in an office most of the day; at home I'm as often as not sitting and reading or surfing the internet. I wish there was a step between sedentary and light activity--about half of my time at home is doing light activity) my allowed calories for the day, based on wanting to lose 1.5 pounds a week, was something like 956 calories! That was a 200 calorie drop (and could explain why I've lost just one pound a week instead of 1.5--their calculators seem to be pretty accurate for me). Rather than agree to that reduction (seriously, taking in under 1000 calories strikes me as a bad idea--how on earth would you get all the nutrients you need?), I lowered my weight loss goals to one pound a week. I've also been pretty good about doing some type of strength training exercise each day--upper body free weight stuff, or pilates-type core exercises--but while that's nice to do, it really doesn't take long or burn too much (woo hoo! I burned 45 calories in ten minutes!).

So that's my whine for today. I'm really looking forward to the thaw we're supposed to get over the next week--hoping I can get outside and exercise after work a couple of days so that I can burn some fat and stop starving myself!