I'm Addicted To Food!

Why not try figuring out your maintenance calories and sticking to that for a while? It might be more manageable than whatever you're doing when you try to diet.

Maybe try talking to a therapist about things that are stressing you out? I have worked in eating disorder treatment before and it's never an addiction to the food itself, it's always more about using food and eating to cope. Find some hobbies not related to food.

Some people feel more hungry when they first cut back -- it's a mental thing. What worked for me:

(1) Making sure I was eating a reasonable amount of food -- don't cut too low. Cut down more gradually if struggling.

(2) Getting on a set eating schedule and making sure I enjoyed my meals instead of just mindlessly eating. For me this means 3 larger meals, since I enjoy them and don't really enjoy having a snack as much, but people will vary. Pick a schedule and try it and modify later if you want.

(3) Making sure my meals had decent volume and were satisfying -- having some protein, some veg, and was a meal I liked helped. (I also eat other foods, but protein and veg are the starting blocks I build a meal around.)

(4) When I first decided to stick to these set meals of my total goal calories, I of course wanted to eat at other times, because that was my habit and I too used food for stress and boredom and emotional stuff. When I wanted to eat I forced myself to remember how soon my next meal was and how I was looking forward to it and to see the anticipation as pleasure. I thought about what I'd eaten that day and if I was really hungry and maybe journaled about WHY I wanted to eat. I perhaps had some water or a cup of coffee (doesn't kill appetite for me, but served the "something to do" purpose). If possible I considered some other stress release like a quick walk or some exercise. AND if I really just wanted to eat, I let myself eat as much as I wanted of low calorie raw vegetables. By the end of the first week I'd adjusted and didn't need the raw vegetables any more.

If it's really just food you want, the raw vegetables should be sufficient without making you go over calories.

Some great suggestions up above, so I'm just gonna add this: make sure to include foods that you love. Don't think of it as "a diet". That word has so many connotations to it. It brings dread, it's thought of as temporary, and it's thought that one has to give up all bread, pasta, cookies, and ice cream and instead eat nothing but itty bitty plates of vegetables. I started like that, and ended up eating whole packages of cookies, pints of ice cream, and bags of chips, not because I was hungry but because I missed my dang food lol. So make sure to still eat the foods that you like, just smaller portions, and work stuff like cookies in with a day of nutrient-dense foods. Also, if your goal is too large a deficit, maybe do a smaller one. It could lead to less of a starving feeling

Best of luck

I don't think people can be addicted to food. We can be addicted to food behaviors, but not food. So, perhaps work on your behaviors then peace with food will follow.

Foods are addictive because they are pleasurable that come quite cheap. Like cigarette, alcohol which the govt curbs by making them more costly, example higher taxes.

You gotta work to lessen "the addiction" which is to remove yourself from the current, familiar situation/daily plan.

I believe that a food addiction is just like any other addiction. You can't cure it, just battle it one day at a time. Set your goals small so that you are able to meet them and then move on to the next. Try setting your goal to lose 1 pound this week instead of saying you want to lose 50 pounds total. Good luck, keep getting trying over and over again.