Artificial sweeteners hit the same receptors as sugar but have no calories - can't we make similar chemicals for other tastes?
I was shocked when I tested myself after buying the diabetes friendly "Sugar Free Worther's Original" candy.
I've done some web searching but haven't found any results inspiring confidence.
what is needed is a good fat substitute. that is where most of the calories come from
For example, it's easy to overeat McDonalds french fries (11g of fat - 99kcal, 31g of carbohydrate - 124kcal, and 3g protein - 12kcal) but it's significantly harder to overeat just beef patties (7g fat - 63kcal, 8g protein - 32kcal). If you ingested 1000 kcal of french fries (roughly 4 small fries) vs 1000 kcal of beef patties (roughly 11 patties), I'd be willing to bet that you'd be significantly more satiated with the beef.
It's easy to say "we JUST need to eat less". Everyone already knows this. I know this, but somehow it's very hard for me to actually eat less, I feel a lot of pain and can't concentrate when I try to eat less, which leads to eating more again. I've tried many times to just eat less, but it somehow doesn't work. I think that your idea is just not that easy.
My brain is absolutely addicted to sugar, though, and if I start eating it I get just insatiably ravenous. The combination of sugar/fat/salt together is a perfect storm of "put all that into my face and don't stop until there's no more left" brain chemistry triggers, and how that's most of our prepackaged food is constructed now.
Before people say I'm weird and never get hungry, not true. Before IF, I used to wake up in the morning because I was hungry. Early in IF it was hard. But, the body adapts. You push through, and now I feel at my best mentally and athletically before my first feeding of the day.
Also like you, while I don't follow a strict keto diet, I cook most of my meals and stay pretty healthy including rice or potato only sometimes. If I go crazy and have a carb heavy meal, I do end up hungry the next day. Understanding one's body is the advantage of getting old I guess :D
It's very hard to adapt initially, especially if you grew up religiously starting the day with breakfast, but the difference is pretty evident once the adaptation happens!
But what changed for me is the following, losing weight is HARDER than gaining weight. Gaining weight typically happens for me at a maximum of 2 pounds per month, over the course of a year with no dieting.
Why would losing weight, something that is harder than gaining weight, be expected to happen faster than gaining it? I set my goals to 2 pounds a month weight loss, and I almost never hit that goal. I usually come in about 1.5 pounds lost per month. I also get WAY more nutrients and vitamins than my body needs by eating lots of liver, and taking athletic greens. That way my "hunger" is always for calories and never for nutrient deficiency.
I've kept this up for almost 5 years now making it a life changing amount of weight loss.
I definitely do think that the best diet is the one you can stick to. I've tried a bunch, but I've learned that the thing that works the best for me is learning how to eat to manage hunger rather than managing calories. Managing calories while being gnawingly hungry is just miserable, as you've attested to.
I drink a lot of coffe, but with sugar. I've tried slowly quitting sugar in coffee, but that only made my stomach ache and drinking it was very unpleasant. Without coffee, I would have to make some other caffeine providing solution, without it it's too hard to focus on coding for me (I can live without coffee just fine, I go cold-turkey for two weeks every year, but it's holdiays and I'm away from computer, so no need for coffee).
Coffee is best with a meal; it raises the stomach acid, which improves digestion of the meal. Plus you don't get the cortisol spike when it's taken with a substantial meal.
Definitely wean yourself away from adding sugar to coffee. I have it without any sugar, but a bit of cream, and nible a pastry along side drinking the coffee. So if you can nibble on something sweet, absolutely skip the added sugar in the coffee.