Informative: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-look-like.htm http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/foods-high-satiation-3799.ht...

Imho the easiest way by far to lose weight is eat foods that combine low carb + high satiation index.

Thanks for the suggestion

It's not about satiation for me. It's about quantity. My point was until I've eaten a plate of food where plate of food equals pretty much any "standard" picture of a plate of food (https://www.google.com/search?q=plate+of+food&tbm=isch) my brain thinks "Dang, you haven't really eaten yet" and yet pretty much every picture in that link is over >1000 calories.

Note, I'm not saying satiating foods wouldn't be better. Maybe I won't desire a snack later or maybe if I eat slow I'll stop earlier (unlikely). Rather, I'm saying many years of eating a plate of food, and possibly second helpings, has my mind thinking and looking forward to those quantities. As in "Oh Boy it's dinner time! Looking forward to that plate-o-food!" then "Awwwwwwww, that's all I can eat be under my limit. That's not even 1/2 a plate worth."

I do it but I don't like it because my mind/habit/experience/expectation is "meal = XXXX" not "meal = XX"

Silly as it sounds... have you tried using smaller plates?

I find having a small plate stacked high seems more like a "real meal" than the same amount of food spread thinly on a larger plate.

Then again, if you're in Japan, I guess you've been exposed to that trick a fair bit.

I recommend you read up on a bit and give it a try, in my experience once you get past the first few days it is MUCH easier than you would think. Also, I believe participating (or at least lurking) in a community, looking at progress pictures (and reading the stories behind them) provides a much needed psychological base to stand on for this task - as you've noted, you personally seem to have strong psychological hurdles.

Thanks. I'll give it try. And I'm not really having trouble. It just takes will power.

My point wasn't about my troubles. My point was, even if you came up with a pill that 100% satiated me, satiation is not the only thing I want from eating. I wouldn't be like "Yay! I had my meal in 1 second, I can get back to something else". Rather I'd be like "Whaaaaat? I wanted to stick delicious food in my mouth, taste it, chew it, lick it, swallow it. And I wanted to do that for 20-30 minutes."

There's enjoyment in the act of eating and for some, it requires quantity. I enjoy for example that Japanese desserts of often small. But I also missing being able to enjoy 40 bites of dessert rather than just 2 if that makes any sense. I enjoy eating a foot long sandwich over 10 minutes rather than a 1/4 foot long sandwich over 2.5 mins.

Sorry if I'm not making any sense. Like I said I'm not really having trouble sticking to my diet. Only noticing how I feel about it.

It sounds like intermittent fasting would be the thing for you. When you only eat one meal a day, that meal can be reasonably large. Many people do find it easier to get used to skipping meals than to eating tiny ones.

I think another problem is that a lot of the examples you are mentioning here are already prepared. I know not everybody has time to create home cooked every day, but it can make a big difference and even things like french fries can be prepared with comparatively few calories (in the oven, just lightly coated with oil).

I agree that 1500 calories are hard to stick to though, I did this for a while and lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time (19 pounds in 3 months). Once the initial, rapid weight loss was over, it felt like too much of a sacrifice for very little gain. Unfortunately that let me abandoning calorie counting altogether and putting some of the weight back on.

Now I'm on a 1800 calorie limit per day and find it perfectly manageable. I often even have 100-200 calories left at the end of a day for a snack. Around 500 calories for breakfast, 600-700 for lunch (which fell often like copious amounts of food. A bowl of pasta with marinara sauce and cheese or such) and another 400-500 for dinner, which leaves just enough room for snacks. I also make a point of eating dinner fairly early, about 12 hours before I'll have breakfast.

What I'm trying to get at is that if you eat the right food (and ideally prepare it yourself) 2000 calories (which should still lead to a significant weight loss) can go a long way without leaving you hungry at the end of the day.

>Potato-chips or fries or a sugary snack? Forget about it!

Well, it's supposed to be a diet after all :)

I think that one should remove snacks/sweets/junk foods from their life before even considering what kind of a diet one should do. After all, those are probably 50%+ of the intake (at least, they are of mine... I'm trying to stop) and there are very few foods with so many calories/carbs.

Sodas are particularly nasty, because one drink them all the day without realizing how much (my suggestion: switch to water, I've done it years ago and I couldn't be happier. Now I can't bring myself to drink a soda while eating, way too sweet).

(Unrelated) you know, I don't even like those this much. I just have a craving for them. When I finish eating those, I usually even drink a cup or two of water because I don't like the taste left in my mouth.

> Sodas are particularly nasty, because one drink them all the day without realizing how much (my suggestion: switch to water, I've done it years ago and I couldn't be happier. Now I can't bring myself to drink a soda while eating, way too sweet).

Ha, I don't understand people who say this. I've also cut sodas out of my life in exchange for water, and my weight has thanked me (a little), but I still find them delicious whenever I have them for a treat.

"while eating", I do like them from time to time as a treat. I find that they just ruin the taste of food, making everything a sweet mix.

Really, there are pretty much two things that I can manage to drink while eating, water and beer. And the second one usually only with pizza.

I agree about soda. To me it was one of the easiest things to eliminate from my diet because after a few months without one I didn't like them anymore.

I have also mostly given up fries, but I still like them even after not having any for months.

I've started logging calories recently and since I am short (160cms) and am only looking to lose 5-6 kilos, online calorie calculators advised me to go on a 1100 calories/day diet. I upped that to 1200 calories, because it would have been unhealthy otherwise, apparently and I feel like if I consume the right foods, then I can stay on 1200 calories a day somewhat comfortably. Eating out is almost always out of the question, though.