When I was at university, I made a game of spending as little as possible on food. 50p/day. Didn't realise until someone here refused to believe me, that my diet then was about 1100 kcal/day during term time. Didn't feel bad at all.

A few years after graduation, for unrelated reasons, I was on antidepressants. I massively over-ate, became obese, gained stretch marks that will likely remain for life.

There was no voice in my head telling me I was even over-eating, there was no awareness of what I was doing to myself even when I felt the weird tingle in my belly that in retrospect was the tearing flesh that has the outward sign of a stretch mark — I ate without thought.

There is no "natural, effective" solution, because our natural instincts are at odds with our unnatural world.