What always helps me is remembering that: hunger feels good -- desire feels good -- food tastes better when you're properly hungry
obviously while counting calories, but the longer i delay eating it seems to help. just wish i could stop binging at night
The best is when you have something that keeps you from noticing you are hungry like geeking out over something.
It's also one benefit of being super busy at work. When I'm teaching (college) I often don't get a chance to eat lunch until maybe around 2:30-4pm some days and I usually don't even notice I'm hungry and until I stop for a minute.
“Hunger is the best sauce in the world,” wrote Miguel de Cervantes in Part II, Chapter V, of Don Quixote, (1615).
I don't think regularly feeling hunger is very desirable or necessary, let alone sustainable. It takes a long time to lose weight and being miserable makes it less likely you'll see it through. Being a little hungry just as the meal is being served, fine. Living in a frequent or constant state of hunger is not a successful path to healthy and sustainable weight loss.
For me what was valuable is to recognize that there is a difference between having appetite for something, being hungry and “almost starving”.
So what is the bodily need and what is the emotional need / craving
I think that for me it is sometimes good to feel proper hunger because I often just eat so frequently that I won't feel it for a long time. Allowing myself to feel hunger is then a healthy thing because it allows me to redistinguish between actual hunger and my stomach just having more room. I wouldn't want it on a regular basis though.