Firstly, congrats on the weight loss. 30 pounds is huge. It sounds like you're on the right track.
My thoughts on hunger: I used to treat hunger as if my body was signalling that it needed food right to survive. Then one day I got sick and couldn't keep food down -- even though I was hungry -- so I stopped eating. To my surprise, my hunger went away. After the sickness had passed, eating anything at all would give me tremendous heartburn, so I continued not eating for about another week. I found it unusual that I could walk the streets in a completely fasted state, my body cannibalising its own muscle and fat reserves, and not feel any hunger at all. To me, it demonstrated that hunger wasn't the 'you require food right now' signal that I thought it was. It must mean something else.
When I began eating again, my hunger returned.
I walked away from that experience with a recalibrated understanding of hunger. It now seems more like a suggestion from the body: 'this is the time that food is usually available, so you should eat if at all possible, because we can't be sure when food will be available again', rather than 'I require food right now to survive'.
My thoughts on hunger: I used to treat hunger as if my body was signalling that it needed food right to survive. Then one day I got sick and couldn't keep food down -- even though I was hungry -- so I stopped eating. To my surprise, my hunger went away. After the sickness had passed, eating anything at all would give me tremendous heartburn, so I continued not eating for about another week. I found it unusual that I could walk the streets in a completely fasted state, my body cannibalising its own muscle and fat reserves, and not feel any hunger at all. To me, it demonstrated that hunger wasn't the 'you require food right now' signal that I thought it was. It must mean something else.
When I began eating again, my hunger returned.
I walked away from that experience with a recalibrated understanding of hunger. It now seems more like a suggestion from the body: 'this is the time that food is usually available, so you should eat if at all possible, because we can't be sure when food will be available again', rather than 'I require food right now to survive'.