Some people look at Bite Counting as another Restrictive "rule".
The thing is, some of us do not eat like naturally thin people.
And some of us never will eat like naturally thin people without some guidelines and putting forth effort.
One of those guidelines that has helped me
is Counting my Bites.
Some of the Advantages...Counting my Bites gives me a Clear Place to Stop.
Counting Bites is virtually free
Food choices are many
You dont need to follow a special diet or foods, but if you choose to, counting bites can work with that too!
It doesn't require that I spend alot of time pouring over calorie counting books, apps, and websites
The concept of bites is so simple, A bite is a Bite! When your bite limit is up, you are done, you can always eat that food the next time/day etc...
When I go to my mother-in-laws for a meal with the family, I don't have to worry about how many calories are in a certain food. I know how many Bites I can have, and I know where to stop.
When you go to a restaurant for a fancy dinner with your spouse, you can enjoy a nice amount of food and feel full without overdoing it! Simply stop at 25 normal sized bites, and enjoy it slowly. ( I use the Eat Slower app, setting it to about 1 minute between bites)
You can precisely control the rate of weight loss by decreasing and increasing bites as needed if you desire to lose a bit faster, slower, maintain, or gain.
It's all about STOPPING! That is where bite counting comes in, a place to stop, eating any food you desire/in your plan, without spending hours of your day obsessing over calories
I will close with this little bit from the chapter on The Mouthful Diet by Edward Abramson, etc
The more we do a behavior, the more it becomes automatic and reinforced
One Quote from the book in the Mouthful Diet Chapter... page 95
Learning to stop eating is the most difficult part of dieting. When you practice stopping frequently enough, it becomes easier to continue this pattern. At first, stopping at bite 150 is as difficult if not more difficult as stopping at bite 75 or less later on. This is especially true when you stop and don't see weight loss. Don't give up. Keep cutting down and keep stopping. You are rehearsing the behavior which is going to make the difference later. You are controlling your own eating behavior. You are stopping when you don't want to stop.
So practice STOPPING! This really seems to be a lot of Dieting/Maintaining in one paragraph. When we STOP eating when our allotted Bite count is eaten, and Accept it, make a habit of it, that is when the results come. The results that Follow Behavior.