[Zelphyr]

Personally, I find telling people to eat less doesn't work. In part because the food manufacturers are such masters at making people addicted to their garbage.

Eating healthy fats and protein is so satiating that one doesn't need to try to eat less, they just naturally do. Yes, there are exceptions to that but, for most people that is true.

[borroka]

It is not my experience at all, and at this point, I have been asked for nutritional advice for 25 years. Any specific recommendations for the general population will be interpreted as that food + all the others that have been eaten before. And aside from extreme examples, such as people who eat only candy all day, any reduction in calories ingested will lead to some feelings of hunger. Yes, by eating protein and fiber at every meal, which by the way is included in my recommendations, you can reduce hunger by what, 5 or 10 percent? But hunger will kick in.

Should I be eating this food? Eat less. What about this supplement? Eat less. A cheat meal? Eat less. Charles Bronson was asked how he kept in excellent shape in his 50s. His answer? Small portions. Accept you need to eat less, food will be there tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after again (there is a reference there to the movie "The Eclipse" by Antonioni, with Alain Delon and Monica Vitti as protagonists). In a short time, a few weeks, you get used to ingesting fewer calories.

[Kirby64]

If you actually need to lose weight (which, statistically, most Americans do), in my experience you will be hungry at some point even with a pretty healthy diet. There’s just no way around the body’s response to a reasonable caloric deficit. The key is being able to actually have the willpower to ignore those pangs. Maybe you won’t be hungry immediately, but a 500cal deficit (which, is a pretty light deficit) is quite a lot.

Most folks are likely at a mild surplus of calories, so the swing to actually get you to lose weight is often as substantial as 700-1000cal to actually lose weight. Per day. It’s a lifestyle change, unfortunately.

[borroka]

"It’s a lifestyle change, unfortunately"

I would say that this is one of the wrong ways of approaching the problem, which makes it more difficult to lose weight. People who are (severely) overweight who gorge on food have an unhappy lifestyle: they don't look good or feel good, they are prone to energy swings that make them irritable and bad company, and they are obsessed with food. Fortunately, an all-too-simple lifestyle change would make their lives much better. The food not eaten today will be there tomorrow. No need to obsess over it.

[Zelphyr]

When I first started, I was rarely hungry in the classical sense. Instead, I knew I was hungry because I would suddenly get tired. When I ate, my energy almost immediately returned.

Also, sometimes when we think we're hungry, we're actually dehydrated.

So, I would argue that nobody needs to ignore hunger pangs. First, drink some water and wait a few minutes. Still hungry? Then eat something[1]. It's ok.

1: See my earlier post about what to eat. If you want to keep being hungry an hour after eating, eat food from the Standard American Diet.