> "You know how a workout 'hurts so good'? Learn to think that way about hunger/cravings. Consider it the same way you would consider a workout pain, as progress not punishment".

Another way to look at it that I've found effective: think of food cravings as an adversarial agent. Your body is blackmailing you: if you give me food, I'll make this craving go away. Trick is, the food you're probably craving -- chips, soda -- don't make the craving go away. They make it worse. Once you notice that you're body doesn't actually make good on its promises to make the cravings stop it's easier to not give in to its demands. And that actually makes the cravings stop. It's no different than dealing with any other bully.

Blackmail indeed, although it may be a different phenomena; consider:

You need a laundry list of nutrients, and if your body is short of any one of them, it'll crave something that might have it. If it has it in insufficient density, it won't care that it needs to also get an extra 500 Kcal along for the ride - it needs to satisfy each item on the list.

I've seen this behavior in both cats and people -- feed them better quality food, and their cravings & weight go down as the full set of nutrients is found in fewer calories.

(Different topic, also very big on intermittent fasting, ensuring that there are frequent periods where the body recovers energy from fat stores)

I've no idea about how cravings work in general, but when I have a craving for two pizzas it's absolutely nothing to do with nutrients. I think you're probably correct for some subset of people/situations, but there's also a whole set of people who are effectively addicted to food and the cravings are almost 0% to do with not having the correct nutrients.

Yes, there is that, although I'd put that in a different class of cravings, almost engineered cravings created/exploited by the food industry, where foods are engineered for taste and repeated consumption, e.g., drinks that make you more thirsty, or overladen salt & sweet flavors that we're just generally programmed to seek because they are rare in nature, but engineer-able.

I noticed one study a long time ago just about flavor. Basically, rats, being fed standard rat chow, with nutrients and calories kept constant, both groups had full access to the food. Group A had one flavor, Group B had six flavors. Group B gained a lot more weight. So, merely restricting flavor choice will reduce your inclination to eat, and conversely, food engineers creating foods with lots of flavors will increase food and eating...

You supposedly craving two pizzas rather than just pizza sounds like nonsense to me. It is far too specific to be a craving, if anything it sounds more like a habit to me. Whenever I eat pizza I share a small one with my wife and I still feel like I overate.

Lately (the past few years) I've been struggling with weight gain I couldn't reverse. I have zero self-control and will snack if food is in close enough proximity. I will also not turn down food, so living in Greece, where great food is available 24/7, is hard on me.

A few weeks ago I decided to try 8/16 IF, which basically means I don't eat past 10 pm (mornings are not a problem, I wake up late and never need breakfast). I'll usually wake up around noon, have my first meal at around 3 or 4, then have a small meal at 9 or just before 10 and that's it for the day.

This has made a very big difference. I have already lost 2 kg without even thinking about it. It helps a lot that I will eat a small meal before I'm hungry (at 9), wheras before I'd wait until 1 am when I was starving and then would eat a large meal.

It has also made compliance a breeze by just not giving me a choice. I'm unable to say "I've eaten a lot today so I shouldn't have this snack too", I would just think "eh I'll have this snack and eat less tomorrow", only for the cycle to repeat the next day. Now, if it's past 10 I don't eat anything, simple.

I definitely recommend this to anyone with compliance problems. I can also 100% relate to your hunger statement, which I learnt the last time I dieted, years ago. Being hungry just means that my body is burning fat, and I can go 30+ hours between meals without really any ill effects.

This can work for people who don't really need a lot of weight loss. Obese people are too deeply conditioned, their brains are wired differently and their bodies probably not responding on the hormonal level the same way as yours. To them it's a bit like suggesting a drug addict to just enjoy the withdrawal crisis. According to this research: "a substantial fraction of obese individuals exhibit an imbalance between an enhanced sensitivity of the reward circuitry to conditioned stimuli linked to energy-dense food and impaired function of the executive control circuitry that weakens inhibitory control over appetitive behaviors" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3124340/

I guess. I'm a big dude, and I find it a lot easier to fast than to eat carefully on a more typical schedule. Part of it is definitely just acclimating to the sensation of food cravings (and also learning to distinguish that feeling from "hunger"), but also, if I don't eat regularly, I tend not to crave food in the first place. I can pretty sustainably stay on an 18 hour fast schedule without breaking.

Given that you're a "big dude" (aka overweight?) I assume you are that way by choice given your comments about how you can control your appetite?

I'm a bit of a fat bastard myself and I think what I've come to realise is that for a huge segment of the population eating just works fine and they can adjust diet to tweak this or that relatively easily. For the rest (like me), my relationship with food is broken and stuff like IF or keto or whatever are patches to deal with that underlying brokenness. It always works for a while, but it always go to shit eventually.

I've never been obese, so that may be a good point to bring up. At my biggest, I was 187 at 5'10". So not that big, but I lost 35 pounds and have kept it off for 11 years now, using my own style of intermittent fasting.

Yeah but they hint at the reason

> Certain foods, particularly those rich in sugars and fat, are potent rewards [23] that promote eating (even in the absence of an energetic requirement)

If the subjects are used to carb- and sugar-heavy diet, the hormonal spikes will be very stressful on the body.

They also mention fat-heavy foods, but I suspect they are referring to foods high on both fat+sugars, not a green salad with copious amounts of olive oil.

Anecdotal, but one of the things I noticed when I switched to keto for a while was a drastic change in my relationship to sugar. After cutting out sugar entirely, I noticed that water didn't taste bitter anymore, something I'd always attributed to the hard water supply. Coffee is also wildly different now, and I can drink teas without any sugar, which confuses folks when I eat out. (In my part of Texas, iced sweet tea is so popular it's basically the default beverage.)

It's so strange. My whole life I hadn't given sodas a second thought, but that reward signal is strong. I don't think I ever want to go back.

I like to think of hunger as "the feeling of my body burning fat."

>"You know how a workout 'hurts so good"

This is what I exactly tell people. It's the only way to sustain it.

I can think, I can wait, I can fast.

Wise, Sid

I am concerned about how your post and other answers to it read like pro-ana slogans.

I understand your concern and sympathize with those who starve themselves pathologically. However, the posts that you’re referencing are full of joy in the conquering of an addiction to eating. These people are taking steps that truly enhance quality of life and longevity.