I can relate.
I track often. I am curious and it can be informative sometimes.
But it’s not true life. I always was looking forward to the times when I can forget this. I pity the pour souls who do it forever, maybe it’s not that horrible and better than the other option but still. It’s stressful. I always take breaks even if I happen to track for a while.
And I have little to no control except I chose my diet, limiting the items I consume is very easy, the others are hard. I don’t lose ANY fat just because I track and even do my best to eat as little as I can. My body wants its food and my body gets its food… (My silly “eating without need” sessions are another thing but I got better at those and anyway, things get balanced out so they don’t matter much, I just eat less later.)
It’s called calorie counting and yep, I count. I don’t particularly limit my calories, how could I do that? If I ate 200g fat instead of 100 and I am hungry, I obviously will eat some fat along with my protein, I have priorities and some more or less fixed numbers never win. (I never had a fat limit, actually. I couldn’t care less about that. But I can’t afford a high number if I need little energy. Not like it controls my eating at all as wrote.)
I reached this weight before I started tracking except I used it for some days to figure out what satiates me better. Less carbs. And my strict paleo day had >200g carbs (I loved my vegetables), wow. So, it was informative. But I automatically ate and lost fat when I lowered my carbs, tracking wasn’t needed at all so I skipped that annoyance.
So it’s about finding a method that allows me to lose fat, not choosing a method and forcing myself to be hungry. I don’t do that. Once I actually did. I simply went to bed hungry. I woke up starved and miserable, ate a ton in the next 2 days and felt alive again. My weight was my least concern. It was like worrying about the beauty of our skin when we are tortured with knifes. I never did that again. Eating at 2-3am isn’t nice either the next day but way better. I rarely need that though, a good lunch and maybe a dinner does the trick.
My body manipulates me sometimes, not vice versa. I try to trick it. It’s hard, people are so amazing that they do IF or keto or they get stressed or something and bam! Their body is fine with almost no food, I mean, no complaining. Mine isn’t like that and it’s not necessarily a bad thing but my body wants to maintain this state and I don’t want that. But I alone am powerless except I can make lots of effort to find a good, effective method. I find something after a few years but it stops being effective after some days, usually. But I am really hopeful now.
Especially that I surely will win something even if my fat reserves stay the same. Perfect satiation, better nutrition, losing food addictions… And fun and joy and deliciousness, learning about a new world.
And I surely will eat less than on a carbier diet while I will be more satiated, it’s inavoidable, I function that way. It’s just not necessarily enough to lose fat. But I am sure it will happen eventually. For now, I just eliminate some annoying problems. Maybe it will be enough.