I can't say whether any of this applies to you without a lot more background, but here's how I managed to shed the weight: I focused on heading off both severe hunger and the intense rebound hunger that follows, by restricting what I ate and steering clear of anything likely to send blood sugar, brain dopamine, or whatever biochemical switch high-calorie foods flip, soaring — since for me that switch, once it flips back a few hours later, means raging hunger.
The closer your eating patterns sit to binge eating disorder or food addiction, the more this matters. What worked for me was sticking to foods with a maximum energy density of 1.5 kcal per gram, which kept hunger way down and let me eat until I wasn't hungry anymore without racking up too many calories. In practice that means as little fat as I can manage, loads of very lean meat, fruit, vegetables, no high-carb high-glycaemic items such as bread, pasta, or grains, a little low-fat high-protein yoghurt, plus 20 g of dark chocolate once a day — for some odd reason it doesn't set off that extreme hunger response. Plenty of low-fat protein, since per calorie it fills you up more than anything else. A soup made from very lean meat is fantastic.
What's good about eating this way is that it's something you can keep up, it's healthy, and you can eat however much you need to not feel too hungry. Overeating most fruits or vegetables is nearly impossible — even when the sugar content is high, the fiber slows absorption, and putting away 1000 calories of many fruits or veg means 2 kilograms, which is genuinely tough to force down even if you graze slowly all day. You can even eat close to double that and still drop weight. Your palate shifts too, so fruit ends up tasting wonderful and you crave the high-calorie stuff less — though for me it took complete, absolute avoidance of high-calorie highly rewarding foods, and so far that's held for 3 years.
The first 70 kg came off without GLPs, since back then I figured they cost too much. I kept it off for a year, but it was brutal — I was hungry much of the time and almost never satisfied, and metabolic adaptation meant maintaining my weight required roughly 1600-1800 kcal/day.
Then I found that prescription ozempic wasn't terribly pricey in Aus at low doses, so I gave it a year and it helped, though it made me nauseous; still, it took a bit of the edge off the hunger. After that I came across this forum, moved to 15mg tirzepatide, and later added 5mg of retatrutide too when I was still somewhat hungry all the time. Those made a huge difference — I feel full after small meals of about 300 kcal, and cravings for unhealthy food dropped a lot. Over the past 7 months I've gradually shed another 8 kg. Without both the GLP's and the diet approach, I doubt I could have lost the weight or kept it off. I'd reached a normal bmi range before but never managed to stay there beyond a couple of years — though back then I didn't really grasp how different foods triggered my hunger, and glp's didn't exist. For me, dodging all high-calorific-density foods works, and based on what I understand of physiology, it ought to be one of the simplest ways to tolerate a lower calorie intake over the long haul with the least hunger. That said, I think cutting out rich foods entirely is necessary to reset your taste, so plainer foods gradually taste better, and to stop extreme rebound hunger from kicking in if you're prone to it. In some ways it's really tough to maintain, since it means completely avoiding many popular foods, but in other ways it's the easiest — you can eat as much as you need and still lose weight. And GLP's certainly make it easier.
Thanks
I'm not sure? I'd still say I'm 'highly functional.' No time to sit and stew. There's a pile of things waiting on me. Honestly, that pile (of things waiting) might be what keeps me afloat. 
Thanks Rando!
