I love tracking. There was most likely a point where I was frustrated in deprived.
But I was most likely not eating the best stuff, leaving plenty of room for bad quality, low quantity amounts of food.
I eat 3 meals and a snack every day. I am on a 1500 cal diet. Honestly? The first two weeks, even with eating LOTS of healthy stuff, plenty of food, I was always hungry. I assume it's just that I was always used to having more, so it felt like deprivation, when really what I had experirenced before (gluttony!) had made me come to expect so much more. I was not ACTUALLY deprived, but in comparison to the previous way of eating, I most certainly seemed it.
Either way, I'm on week three and I am rarely hungry. Also, I've learned to distinguish between wanting to eat my emotions and wanting to feed a physical hunger. That was really important for me. If I DO get hungry, I stop and tell myself that a little discomfort due to occasional hunger is far better than the massive amount of discomfort you suffer from when you are fat. Anything from your clothes not fitting to people not wanting to sit by you on the bus.
I am very conscious of my choices, I track everything, which makes me feel empowered, and it's a way I can SEE that I am doing it right. It's hard to just guess. ha.
You can do it though, like robin said it's just a matter of re-framing your thoughts and such, and really I do that every time I eat, there is some old thought that creeps in and I have to counter it with something positive and healthy and really I doubt that will ever change. It most likely will be something I do forever. Like an alcoholic walking past a bar, even if they don't want a drink, have been clean for years, there will probably be automatic thoughts that are negative to them, that will pop into their heads and they will have to suss it out in a positive way to keep them on the straight and narrow.
As far as feeling entitled to your cals, rosinante...
Last night I had tons to do, I ate about 400 cals for breakfast, then didn't have dinner until around 10 p.m at night. I DID have a fabulous feast. ha.
I had a giant salad with lots of veggies and I allowed myself real (kens lite northern italian) dressing as opposed to the usual plain balsamic vinigar. (which I do love), and I even allowed myself a serving of cheese and some parm sprinkled on it as well. It was really good. Then, I had 1 cup (dry, 2 servings) of spaghetti with my baked chicken parmesean. It was AMAZING! Later, I had a skinny cow chocolate truffle treat.
I still had about 240 cals left at the end of the day, I wanted to eat some fruit, but got tired and went to bed. Old me would have pushed it and stayed awake cuz I had them to eat, but, I dunno....I'm getting better at this (menally) at least!
I think the biggest thing I have learned from my flub ups is that I have to track, I have to be accountable to myself and that is the only way I can do it. If I don't pay attention to what I eat I'm sure I would see 270 on that scale in a matter of days and well I'm not even going to give that a microscopic chance of happening.
I may not always like it, but I also don't deprive myself.. if I want to have something, and I can fit it in my calories, I have it.. but I also have become aware of my trigger foods and really think twice before I allow myself to have something that could send me on a downward spiral.
I am not ashamed of the fact that I *need* to track my calories. In fact, it makes me kinda proud that I do it.
I'm proud that I track.
I'm proud that if, due to the occasional planning malfunction, I find I've got to my calorie and/or carb limit, I stop, even if I'd been expecting to eat another meal.
I'm not proud that I feel I must eat up to my limit on a day when I'm already full. That's a behaviour I need to change.
