Originally Posted by Wesley36

Another anomaly over here - since Jan 2012 I have lost between 25 and 30 lbs. I have not had to resort to calorie counting, what I have done is change my eating habits. But in the end, that has accomplished the same thing - I eat fewer calories, and I burn more (structured training and all that).

Two key changes diet wise - I self consciously try to eat more fat, and related, I generally try to minimize starchy carbs. Like last night, we made a variant on Korean bibimbap, but I went easy on the rice and heavier on the veg/tempeh/kim chi/seaweed. More satiating, more nutritionally dense, and fewer calories. I am all over adding coconut oil to my morning oatmeal, and lots of avocados and nuts, that kind of thing.

Secondly, and this is the biggest one IMHO, is I have simply changed how I eat. I fill up my plate half full (compared to what I am used to), and I am free to go for seconds and thirds, but I make myself wait 5-10 minutes and have a drink of water before I take another portion. And crucially, I grew up eating until I felt full. I now eat until I am not hungry any more, then I stop eating. When before I occasionally over-ate at parties or restaurants, I now eat until I am full, and I stop, and it feels like a splurge because I am used to eating to satiation. When I used to chronically eat to fullness, a splurge often meant eating until I was downright uncomfortable (food coma at Thanksgiving, etc).

This last couple of years I have been re-learning how to interpret the sensations of hunger and satiation, and the upshot of it is, I don't feel any real sense of deprivation, weight is falling off, and I feel great. But for me the key has been learning the difference between satiation and fullness, and eating to satiation. Then stopping.