> The thing is, exercise still reduces appetite.

Not for me. I work out about 3 times a week, never felt like my appetite got smaller on workout days.

Intermittent fasting is nice however. There are pangs of hunger occasionally, but if I power through them, they go away after 1 hour usually.

For long years I didn't really try to loose weight, because I thought it would require me to work out, which I didn't want to do. I know enough people with joint problems very likely relating to the amount of work out they did/do, even though they never were overweight. Two years back I decided to go against convential wisdom and attempt weight loss without any work out at all. With tremendous success. I understand that working out helps general health, but so does weight loss. So I refuse to feel bad.

It's so weird that you feel pressure to feel bad about how you went about it :( I apologize that society is so messed up. Caloric reduction without exercise is totally a valid way to lose weight! There are plenty of people that do it - you get tired when you diet, and so "hibernating" can help. It works for you and that's all that matters.

I know, for instance, Penn Teller lost his weight in the same way - he decided to just eat baked/boiled potatoes with nothing else and just chilled out for a 100 days and lost 100 lbs. That's what worked for him!

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/news/...

>exercise still reduces appetite

This was one of the big surprises for me. When I'm exercising regularly, food tastes better, and yet I'm satisfied with less of it.

"Dieting is universally a mood killer, because kilo-joule deficit equals starvation."

I practice intermittent fasting a lot and I cannot say that it affects my mood negatively. But I was very grumpy when I ate "five small meals a day".

It seems that the digestive system is more OK with being totally empty than being just half full all the time.

> exercise still reduces appetite

Please be careful generalizing anectodal facts. Lots of people, me included, have otherwise experience.

I feel like it's a more complicated story going on.

Post exercise I will often have a sort of hunger roller coaster. Naively, imagining the body's metabolism, hunger is responding to perception of a calorie deficit in the blood : organs demanding energy and blood sugar decreasing, forcing burning of calories from stored reserves.

But what if your body is able to efficiently maintain glucose levels? in that case exercise might not induce hunger, in fact it might be that exercise stimulates alternative pathways that release energy and these stay active even after you finish exercising. This might well be much more the case for well trained athletes than regular people. Or it might depend on diet or loads of other factors.

Personally, I have found that exercise is nearly pointless any time other than right before I eat. So exercising before breakfast is perfect because the stimulated hunger response is immediately satisfied by eating breakfast. But I don't eat more breakfast than I usually would, so it's a win.

Fasting isn’t a mood killer, it actually has the opposite effect. IF gives me an energy boost and associated euphoria.

While I don't experience any euphoria, I agree that intermittent fasting doesn't affect my mood negatively. After the first few weeks, you don't even think about it anymore. And being able to go out, eat a normal meal at a restaurant without worrying about math, or 'cheating on a diet', is pretty positive mentally when you can still fit into a size 6 dress.

What is your IF schedule like? Can you expand on the euphoria?

When I do 24 hr fasts (going from dinner to dinner), which is not that often, in the early afternoon until dinner time I get a big energy boost and very enhanced mood. That first time, I thought that it felt like I was high on something.