I assume you're getting downvoted because short comments are perceived as "low effort", but my sister-in-law is a registered dietician at an eating disorder in-patient facility. She has used the phrase "Uber for eating disorders" to describe those programs...

Yeah, it wasn't intended to be low effort. The entire idea of "dieting" effectively encourages people into eating disorders.

For me, losing a bunch of weight was as simple as cutting out big sugar bombs and alcohol. After about a month, anything that could be classified as a "dessert" became cloyingly sweet and gave me indigestion. I pretty much eat whatever I want otherwise.

In my experience having lost and kept off half my body weight, and I'm sure my family would agree with me on this, effective weight loss basically requires an eating disorder.

I don't know how much weight you lost, but I can't imagine it was all that much if all you had to do was cut out sugar and booze, unless that was the majority of your caloric intake.

About 50 lbs from my heaviest (200 -> 150, or a quarter of my peak body weight). I would say I had an eating disorder before the weight loss -- I frequently ate my emotions and booze and sugar were a big part of that behavior. High quantities of sugar and alcohol make it very easy to consume calories while still feeling hungry. As my relationship to food became one of sustenance rather than consumption, the weight naturally came off.

Encouraging this shift is largely how eating disorders are treated; though in my case it came as a result of dealing with a lot of trauma that I had buried. But ultimately it's about holistic emotional and physical health, and reframing your relationship to food in that context.

> unless that was the majority of your caloric intake

Even if it is only 10% of the caloric intake, it works. Obviously not for losing 100kg, but a 200kcal deficit per day (one less dessert or one bottle of beer) adds up to 10kg weight loss within a year.