I put “hungry” in quotes because what my overweight friends describe as feeling hungry I have only felt under the influence of marijuana, and what I describe as hungry is what they feel like all day other than right after a meal.
I haven’t found any literature on what drives human appetite that seemed non quackery science, but I’d be very intrigued whenever someone figures out what causes these different experiences
For me personally, I think it was completely driven by my mind. I was stressed while there and became further stressed when my willpower inevitably lost to my biology. Consistent, hard cardio; lowering my stress levels; and (most importantly) acknowledging and accepting that I don't have perfect control over the outcome were key to fixing it.
It's hard to talk about this without getting circular.
Primary Loop: Hunger -> Eat -> Time -> Hunger -> Eat (loop)
Secondary Loop: Weight Gain -> Notice Weight -> Diet -> Gain (loop)
I don't have a conclusion to this, I'm still trying to figure it out.
In the primary loop hunger keeps you alive.
When you get hungry and eat and feel satisfied, that operates on multiple systems in the brain and body. There are lots of hormones that are flowing and telling body systems to do things and also telling your consciousness what your condition is.
I'm not prepared to talk about the psychology in depth, but I do know that it feels very un-natural to be in a calorie deficit. I know that having low blood sugar makes it very hard for me to think. At times it's felt like my body is telling me I'm going to die and it's been very hard to ignore that feeling.
It does indeed sound like your hunger is more intense than my hunger. I think I benefit from a ton of experience in transitioning past "I'm very hungry" to "I'm fine" when I choose not to eat. There's a clear point (for me) when the body just says "oh we're not going to eat now? ok, I'll stop interrupting the brain with 'I'm hungry' signals." It just goes away and I'm no doubt in a caloric deficit.
Some of this is self-discipline, and some of it is an ability to find something more engaging/interesting than eating. If I push past the hunger threshold, it's easy to just not eat for a long stretch of time. Eventually, I notice that I'm extremely physically weak and mentally fatigued (but still not very hungry), and I realize that I have to eat, or it's going to start causing problems.
Anyways, take that for what it's worth.