[tharkun__]

They do it that way. It does not have to be. You just gotta eat different highly rewarding foods.

E.g. do eat that steak. But without a BBQ sauce you bought. Just salt and pepper is great actually. But a butter and cream garlic sauce (no sugar) is also awesome. Maybe some blue cheese on top instead?

Skip the potato. Just that steak with some nice caramelized onions or veggies you like as a side. But that's not even needed.

Highly rewarding I can tell you. Yes it's not sweet and rewarding. It's not carb loaded rewarding but it's absolutely delicious, fills you up for a long time. Yes this is going in the Keto carnivore direction so might not be for you but having eaten Keto (with less than 20g of carbs a day) I can tell you it was absolutely great and rewarding taste wise as I could finally enjoy cream based sauces and bacon again instead of low fast sugary stuff that makes you hungry again after an hour.

[SketchySeaBeast]

My success has always come without a real gimmick and simply calorie counting. Have what you want, but be aware what you're eating and work towards a goal. I set a slow weight loss goal so I'm not hungry due to extreme of a deficit. I can still eat my ice cream if I've made sure that I still have caloric room at the end of the day. After a while off counting I find my proportions are getting too big, I realign with some tracking again, and carry on.

[convexfunction]

I'd actually advocate for potatoes as a "weight loss food". They're quite low in caloric density relative to most other "carbs" since they have so much water; there's even a meme "potato diet" (just eat potatoes and almost nothing else for a few weeks or months, basically) with lots of glowing anecdotal success stories.

[convexfunction]

And, well, I failed horribly at conveying my actual strategy (I guess we're getting hung up on "fruits, vegetables, and lean meats are supposedly not very rewarding"?) because I would describe what I'm doing as "eat different highly rewarding foods".