[convexfunction]

> That tells me the writing on the wall, and let me be clear about this, the writing is what needs to be written and what people need to read - you're making the decision to NOT have cheesecake when you only kind of feel like it. It's a game of weighing the pros and cons and learning to be satisfied with what you know you should have instead of turning around one day and loving the healthy food more than the unhealthy.

Let me rephrase: since changing my diet to include more low-energy-density foods (and being deliberate about eating large portions of them), I find myself less frequently even considering having dessert after dinner.

> You're discounting the calories / gram of butter in your first calculation and including it in the second.

No? I'll put 7g of butter (50 calories) on a 300g potato (280 calories) and not at all feel like I needed more butter. Even if you double that amount of butter, it comes out to 1.2 cal/g.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Do you weigh everything you eat?

[convexfunction]

Not quite everything, but outside of rare social eating situations I do weigh my food when I'd otherwise have to make a bad estimate for caloric content (i.e. not single-serving packaged food or food from a restaurant that publishes nutrition facts). I also track my calories, though I'll willfully go over my daily calorie target whenever I feel like it with approximately no guilt.

I'm sure this has contributed to the success of my "diet" -- I also started lifting weights again in this period -- but the comment I was originally replying to was about how weight loss requires discomfort, and the energy density thing has been the key insight for me on how to make it not require discomfort. I see now it reads like I was solely attributing my weight loss to this one weird trick (though I do think it's been the most important factor), so, mea culpa.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Fair enough. I've had excellent success with just calorie tracking / weighing without massively changing my diet - by setting a small caloric deficit I was able to consistently slowly weight over months without massively changing things and enjoying all my usual foods.

I'm glad your system has worked for you.