One thing that I think is overlooked a lot is the psychology of eating.  This is something I am working on in my own life.

Experts say:  reduce your caloric intake to lose weight.  Eat until you're not hungry, don't go for full.

So why is this so damn hard for so many people?

We have built a society where there are far more external cues for hunger than internal cues.  In other words, we put a great amount of emphasis on judging hunger from the time on a clock, seeing food (think advertising, food network), and smelling food.  Food is everywhere.  Food is culture.  Food is the topic of conversation in many domains.  Food is intimate.  All of these external cues drown out what our bodies are telling us about our nutritional needs.

Another person mentioned this too – most of us are dehydrated and confuse our need for water with hunger.  Perhaps if we got better at listening to our bodies, this wouldn't happen so much.  Still, those external cues take over, and all of a sudden, we are tricked into thinking we need a fat veggie burger when all we need is a glass of the wet stuff.

I've been recommended meditation as a way of becoming more aware of what my body truly needs.  Still, life doesn't always offer time for anything but snap decisions.  The only way…