That's always been my secret.

I'm a bit over 180 right now and wish I was down around 160 or so. I had started at over 215 a few years back. If I really tried I could probably get down to my target weight fairly quickly. I can always lose weight if I just don't eat much. I'm one of the lucky ones who can actually "go hungry" and not feel any particularly ill effects. Some people get bad headaches, I don't usually get that.

The changes that allowed me to get back down to 180 from above 215 were:

- Ignore everyone who says it's bad to skip meals. Instead, try to think of how our bodies evolved: Being tolerant of feast/famine cycles. I don't believe anyone who says we should be constantly nibbling on food all day. One meal per day or even fewer than that should be just fine for most otherwise-healthy people who want to lose weight.

- Stop drinking sugared beverages and switch to diet drinks most of the time (first, DDP, later Snapple Diet Peach).

- Ignore your cultural programming that "hunger==emergency" and just allow yourself to be hungry sometimes.

- Stop having lunch at work. Do an eight hour shift with no lunch break. Go home an hour earlier and have a light (normal) dinner when you get home.

- Breakfast is a rare occurrence for me.

- Don't eat socially. If you do eat socially (for instance, a business lunch or a date), then subtract other meals to compensate.



That's all it takes for me. The more strictly I conform to the above, the less I weigh. When I gain weight, it's usually because I've been doing one of the above differently (eating socially a lot, going to lunch with coworkers, having breakfasts, that sort of thing).