On a deficit and feeling like it's not enough..

Hi everyone!!

I'm a woman, 5'2, started at 225lbs, now 198lbs. That weightloss was very inconsistent and random and in the middle of it I tried a glp-1 and then stopped, so I don't really have good data as to what works for my body and what doesn't.

I tried to get into a steady deficit for a few months (I count calories), and ended up eventually binging everytime. I was talking to a friend the other day who has a lot of experience with fitness and he said that I aim for a deficit that is too low partly because I'm sedentary and I end up failing.

For reference I tried aiming for a 500 less than my maintenance (when sedentary), so that gave me 1460 calories a day. He said I should start weightlifting 3 to 4 times a week and count my maintenance as lightly active and then substract 500. We did that and I set it on myfitnesspal and I ended up with 1760 calories a day. I'm not used to eating this much when I am on a deficit, I'm used to being hungry and a bit unsatisfied, so this is so strange to me.

I've been doing this for a week, I went to my 4th gym session today... and I'm feeling anxious. The scale has went up a bit, and I know mathematically that I couldn't have actually gained because my maintenance is 2260... but I feel weird, like this won't work and I have to get hungry if I want it to work.

The other thing is that I don't walk a lot, I don't live in a walkable environment and I also can't afford the time it takes, I know this might sound like excuses but I've tried a couple of times and couldn't keep going because my schedule would overwhelm me. So it makes me doubt if I should even consider myself lightly active with just the gym.

On the other hand, I see people on the internet eating 1200 and doing so much more physical activity than I do...

Please let me know what you think, I feel like I'm gaining weight, it's so strange. Do you think this deficit would work? And please share any similar story that you have.