I rely on more of a feedback loop. I eat when I'm hungry, and I monitor simple metrics like my weight, sense of well being, endurance, and physique. I adjust my food intake (but still keying off when I'm hungry), and watch the results.
The problem with relying on hunger is that, for many people, that hungry signal doesn't shut off at the right time. The Hacker's Diet[1] goes into this in great detail, but the gist is that scale weight + calorie counting is a good proxy for replacing a broken hunger signal.
This is one of those things that's really hard to understand unless you experience it, so don't worry if you don't get it.
Nah, I can understand that. I'm actually mildly hungry much of the time; part of tuning that feedback loop is identifying what level of "hungry" to consider, well, hungry.
