No social eating? What a rotten way to live.
I’ve posted this before, but: never eat anything out of the package it came in.
You want some chips? Great, chips are yummy. Get a little bowl, put some chips in it, then (key step) close the bag and put it away, walk away, and enjoy your chips.
You want a cookie? Everyone deserves a cookie now and then. Get a cookie, close the box and put it away, then walk away and enjoy your cookie.
If you eat out of the package, there’s no line telling you where to stop, which means you won’t stop. Instead, take a reasonable serving, close the package and put it away, and go enjoy.
I prepackage my big bag of pretzel sticks into 2-point snack baggies (using a scale). I’ve got a basket of 2-point snacks ready to go.
What do you believe to be the mechanism there?
Social eating can be OK - especially if the food is fiddly - fondue or a big bowl of mussels - anything that means you spend a long time fiddling and talking, whilst eating actually quite a small amount of food.
One thing that worked for me was to constrain myself to a fixed, small-volume lunch box (really tiny - about the size of my closed fist) - and to try to make the meals inside as interesting and varied as possible - so a few crackers, a sliced pickled onion, some grapes and a few pieces of different cheese and half a handful of nuts, became a miniature feast.
First of all, realize that if you want to keep the weight off, then (as others have mentioned) you need to make permanent changes to your lifestyle. If you lose weight by exercising, then once you stop exercising, you’ll gain it back. If you lose weight by dieting, then once you go off the diet, you’ll gain it back. You need a diet/exercise routine that you can stay on forever.
In the past year or two, I’ve managed to lose 30 pounds without actually trying. How? First, I cut way back on fast food (and other restaurant food, but fast food was the biggest part of that), just because I can’t afford it any more. Yes, I know that people think that fast food is cheap, but you can cook for yourself much cheaper. Second, I’ve been biking almost everywhere I go, sometimes for as much as a one-hour commute each way. Again, my goal here wasn’t health, but economics: This way I save money on a car and on gasoline. I may well end up putting the weight back on when my economic situation improves, or I might keep doing those things anyway.
Another option is the diet my mom uses: She makes sure to eat at least ten servings of fruits and vegetables per day, plus whatever else she wants. The big advantage of this diet is that it’s flexible enough to accommodate an occasional restaurant meal or big family gathering, so she never needs to feel like she’s failed the diet and should give it up. She also has a pedometer, and tries to get at least ten thousand steps every week. Like with my biking, this is not a formal exercise regime, just doing the things she does every day anyway… She just makes it a point to walk to places when possible instead of driving.
My secret was simply learning that being a little hungry won’t kill me, and that I can sleep when I’m hungry. The key to doing this is eating healthy, nutritious foods. When you eat poorly, then the later hunger feels like a crisis. When you eat well, hunger is as easy to handle as tapping the snooze button on the alarm clock.
But yeah, get used to finding that subtle knife’s edge of early hunger and spending all your between-meal time there.
I realized I was going about it all wrong trying to eat a very light lunch. Being hungry would make me annoyed and fussing with a measured lunch was a chore.
Now I eat whatever I feel at lunch, and I don’t eat dinner unless I’m actually hungry for it. Once I’ve eaten a large lunch, that’s almost never. I eat reduced carbs in general, but I dont specifically avoid bread, potatoes. etc. I only eat them if they’re good delicious quality and I actually want them.
People get all freaked out when they hear you “skip” dinner – I don’t skip dinner, I just don’t force food if I don’t actually want it. Basically my motto is, “eat what you want, but only what you actually want”. Never reflexively eat because “that’s what people do” or to make other people happy. This is easy for me because I’ve never been an emotional eater. When people already have the habit of comforting their emotions with food things are much more difficult.
I also run, but, I lost all the weight by changing my eating habits, and haven’t lost anything running. I beleive that’s normal - and that moderate exercise inhibits weight loss for a variety of reasons.
Stop eating!
And… no alcohol… yep… sorry… no alcohol 
Did the elimination of diet drinks reduce your cravings for other sweetened, caloric foods? Because eliminating something that has no calories, in and of itself, can’t cause one to lose weight.
I’m not a lady, but I’ve lost 45 pounds since August by doing the following things:
- Not eating as much
- Exercising more
- Timing meals
- Recognizing various hungers
Obviously the first two speak for themselves. For the third, it may be a bunch of woo, but I try to go at least 15 hours between my last meal of the day and my first meal of the next day.
The fourth? If I’m hungry “in my mouth”, I don’t eat. If I’m hungry in my stomach (i.e., it’s rumbling), I’ll eat when I can. If I’m hungry in my blood (i.e., if I start getting pissed for no reason (low blood sugar reaction)) I’ll eat now.
If this makes any sense.
Don’t keep junk in the house. And don’t eat it out. Stop it at the buying phase.
If you are eating out a lot, start making choices - share meals. One of the Weight Watchers trick is to ask for a box to be delivered WITH your meal - put half of your meal into the box to take it home for lunch or dinner the next day before you even take a bite.
(I have a huge challenge with the junk problem - I have a fifteen year old son who eats whatever and stays thin - so there is a piece of frozen pizza left - and I eat it even though I shouldn’t and don’t even really enjoy it. Or tortilla chips out - and I find my hand in the bag without thinking about it).
Have you tried just having an appetizer as an entree? That and a salad OR soup is usually enough for me. And skip the bread basket. And share a dessert if you must.
Fill up with water not diet drinks.
Except that diet drinks dont shut off the brain’s satiety switch. http://www.inquisitr.com/269834/diet-soda-leaves-your-gut-unsatisfied-contributes-to-obesity/
YMMV of course, but giving up Diet Crack …er… Pepsi … helped me control my appetite.
I don’t keep junk food in the house and don’t eat it out.
Portion control. I always leave the table before I’m full.
So, he’s right. You gave up more than just drinking diet drinks; you ate less.
This is necessary, but as we mathematicians say, not sufficient. If you do your own cooking, you can have portion control. Eating out makes portion control much harder. After the portions are under control, stop eating between meals. Not eating after 6 is fine but between meals is also necessary. Eating between meals is a habit and, like any habit, the best way to break it is cold turkey. When I stopped eating in mid-afternoon, I would get hunger pangs in the middle of every afternoon. After a few weeks, they stopped. Let me mention that I am 85 lb below my maximum weight and I have been stuck there for over 2 years.
That is why i asked the poster if eliminating the soda reduced their cravings for other sweetened, caloric foods. In and of itself, eliminating non-caloric foods wont result in weight loss.
Missed edit window, what is that cite supposed to be? I could make no sense of it. And its just my anecdote but when I am dieting, diet soda is the only thing that DOES satisfy my cravings without ruining my diet.