there is no winning

There are a few foods that I ate until the while package was gone. So I stopped buying them. When I had a craving, I'd either try to find a small package, or find someone to share. The less I ate those things, the less the cravings are.

Yeah it takes a while to sort of find foods that work. When I started logging just a month ago I was eating about 2500 calories a day and I REALLY thought I was eating good at that point.

I'm down to about 1700-1900 most days now and I actually get up and move instead of just sitting on my butt all day.

Honestly I don't have any bread in my day to day diet and I really don't miss it. For the carbs, I loved rice at first but I've dropped that too just because the veggies actually leave me feeling a lot fuller so I would rather spend the calories on them.

I think you'll find it's a lot easier to stay in charge of the food once you start bringing it along. At first, bring a little more than you need just to get used to having enough with you. Lots of people think if they pack a light lunch they will eat light... normally that just makes them grab a bag of chips and a soda.

Hope you find something that works well for you.

For me, moderation and portion control works with a lot of things. Olive oil, nuts, avocados, sour cream.

It does not work on cookies. It does not work on protein bars. I can seriously eat thousands of calories worth of both in one go. It doesn't really work on mashed potatoes or pizza, either, because ditto.

I think that ultimately, you have to do what's best for you. Don't treat all food like the enemy, but choose which foods are your friends and align yourself with them. If you can't moderate your bread consumption, stop allowing it into your life entirely. Ditto any other food that causes you to binge. There is no rule that says you have to be able to eat moderate amounts of all foods to be healthy.

I haven't found it worth it to keep foods around that take more of my self-control than I feel like dealing with. You can go by the gold standard for the forums, but you're the one that has to live your life. I don't mean that you have to continue thinking of carbs as devils, but is keeping the bread around worth the effort? (It might be for you, if you really love it.)

I cut out my hard core binge foods (pasta and potatos....and all other carbs) for a period of about 4-5 weeks. It sucks, but I personally feel like it reduced my cravings. I feel like now I can sit down and manage a cup of either and not require the whole pan. I always hear on here that there is no need to cut out the foods that you love, just to enjoy them in moderation......for me, at least, it took cutting them out completely to be able to eventually enjoy them in moderation.

I'm now in week 3 of eating a reduced carb diet. I would normally eat pasta or potato with every evening meal, bread with every lunch meal and bread for breakfast at the weekends. I've had to make sure I make my own lunch to bring to work as I know I would end up buying something based around bread and crisps. I plan what I'm going to have for dinner at the weekend, mainly so I can do the food shopping, but also so I don't just have pasta or something with potato as I don't know what to have.

avoidance is what I've been using but then I see "moderation & portion control" being hammered as gold standard in these forums, so I buy the trigger having convinced myself I will have control this time.NOPE

It's very important to disregard any kind of dieting advice that works counter to your strengths and plays into your weaknesses.

Be true to self. That bull**** you read around here that everyone should be eating everything "in moderation" is just that, BS. It works for some, but not for others. I use to have an enormous problem with certain sweet desserts and eating even a little almost always led to consume far, far too much. Learning to abstain from them was what, once upon a time, worked really well for me.

Now I don't restrict anything, but my definition of moderation still isn't "eat two oreos a night". Now I allow myself those old trigger foods, but give myself the freedom to eat as much as I want. I just make sure that I don't eat them every day, or every week. Through trial and error, and a lot of failure, I've just gotten strong enough that I can go weeks and even months without those old foods. But it took a LONG time for me to get to this place. Cutting them out, learning that I could do that and eventually the cravings would die, was a lesson I needed to learn.

Find your own definition of "moderation". And if you have trigger foods that are tripping you up badly now, and you're having real trouble only sticking to a single serving of bread, then it's perfectly OK to cut the bread out until such a time as you're strong enough to let it back in on your own terms.