I’ve experienced this phenomenon when I was trying to hold myself to an entirely self crafted set of dietary restrictions which nobody else knew the terms of or was trying to encourage me to follow (I was trying to hit single digit body fat percentage in college, and had functionally unlimited quantities of food on offer in the cafeteria. Sometimes, if I still felt too hungry after the caloric intake I had allotted for myself, I would give in and let myself eat much, much more than I intended.)
I had a target number of calories per day, plus guidelines for the sort of things I ought to eat to feel full enough and get enough nutrition at low calorie levels, and an understanding that if I broke the target number, it was better to do it by a little rather than a lot.
I was pretty successful (dropped down to approximately 7% body fat according to an electrical impedance scale,) but I learned that it was important not to break the targets at all, because it was practically impossible to break them by just a little. If I did, it was hard to not simply give up on diet control for the day.
I’ve experienced this phenomenon when I was trying to hold myself to an entirely self crafted set of dietary restrictions which nobody else knew the terms of or was trying to encourage me to follow (I was trying to hit single digit body fat percentage in college, and had functionally unlimited quantities of food on offer in the cafeteria. Sometimes, if I still felt too hungry after the caloric intake I had allotted for myself, I would give in and let myself eat much, much more than I intended.)
Were the rules binary (e.g. “don’t do X”) or did you make yourself a point system?
I had a target number of calories per day, plus guidelines for the sort of things I ought to eat to feel full enough and get enough nutrition at low calorie levels, and an understanding that if I broke the target number, it was better to do it by a little rather than a lot.
I was pretty successful (dropped down to approximately 7% body fat according to an electrical impedance scale,) but I learned that it was important not to break the targets at all, because it was practically impossible to break them by just a little. If I did, it was hard to not simply give up on diet control for the day.