I believe in your technique Jessie, it's all about calories really. A few years ago I went on a calorie diet and lost about 25 pounds in a few months. This week-end I realized I was like 10 pounds over, so there goes a diet again.
I know that half a bagel is 150 calories, plus peanut butter 50 calories, glass of milk, 80 calories, and so on. At the end of the day, if you are taking less calories than you are actually burning, you will lose fat. The problem is that when you get older, you burn less calories. What's tough about a calories diet is that first of all you need to handle hunger, you need to be able to be comfortable with it. Also, a pound of fat is about 3000 calories, so you won't lose a pound per day, especially that an average human being burns about 2000 calories per day, which makes you lose a pound every 5 days if you reduce your intake to 1400 calories per day. This is what I'm usually losing in my diets.
Some people say that it all depends what you mix your food with, how well you eat, etc etc. I read a lot about this and for me it's really simple, if you eat something that contains 500 calories, no matter what you do with it, if you don't burn it it will become fat, no matter if you mix it with potatoes or rice or tomatoes.
Finally, practice is to music what willpower is to diets
