What tricks make weight loss easier?

[Daves_Not_Here]

I'm curious what weight-loss tricks or "hacks" y'all can recommend that make weight loss easier for you.

Here's one I use:  every morning I cut a smallish avocado into quarters, weigh and log it as an Anytime meal.  Then I sprinkle with celery salt, eat 1 quarter at breakfast.  This leaves me with 3 little fat bomblets to snack on during the day.  Then when I feel a hunger pang, I'll eat one with a large glass of water and voila!, pang abated.

[Baltoscott]

Since I love avocados I would probably enjoy that hack @Daves_Not_Here, but it conflicts somewhat with my second habit below ...

Here are two habits I started this year that I hardly think about anymore, so I think they will stick.  (My approach to diet is more about behavior modification than anything else, so when you say "hack" I think "habit.").

Leading into 2017 I realized that I was drinking too many calories -- a couple of beers or glasses of wine almost every night.  Maybe a few more if I was watching a football or basketball game.  No binging really, but a lot of extra empty calories in my diet.  So I took the month of January off and that was the first step to losing about 40 pounds this year.  When I started back up in February I decided every other day would be a "no alcohol" day.  And that is pretty much how it has worked out.  

So for habit number 1:  

If it is an odd-numbered day I'll probably have a beer or two, though sometimes none.  And if I have the urge for a drink on an even-numbered day, I just remind myself that tomorrow is not very far away and if I can't wait that long I must have a problem.  Since weekends tend to be a little less structured than the rest of the week I might switch a Saturday with a Friday or a Sunday to join in at an event, but mostly it is no effort to stick with the even/odd routine.

Habit number 2 is reducing my meals to 3x/day plus an afternoon snack.  

I used to allow myself snacks throughout the day, and I would try to log them to make sure I wasn't blowing my calorie budget.  And I would pretty regularly eat 5 or 6 times/day.  When I reduced my calories to lose weight this year the 5 or 6 meals started getting pretty small -- maybe 300-400 calories each for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and another 100-200 calories mid-morning, mid-afternoon and before bed.  I never felt full doing that, and consequently, I'm not sure I knew when I was really hungry.  I was just mildly hungry most of the time.  And if one of the main meals got delayed for a work meeting or waiting for my wife to get home, I wound up with some unscheduled snacks, and then expended mental energy trying to make to reduce calories at a later meal.  Often I was not successful.  (Being mildly hungry most of the day makes it REALLY hard to pass up food at work meetings too!)  So I bumped it up to about 500-600 calories for the three main meals and another 200-300 for the afternoon snack -- and "fasted" the rest of the day.  That tended to get me pretty full for each of the three main meals (but not stuffed) and feeling satisfied for several hours after the meal.  By the time the next meal came around I might be a little hungry, but not so much that I would need to snack if the meal is delayed for some reason.  (I initially tried three meals instead of 3 plus an afternoon snack, but my lunch and dinner meals are usually about 8 or 9 hours apart, which is a bit too long for me).

[Daves_Not_Here]

Whoa!  Limiting alcohol to every other day is waaaaay too draconian for me.  About the most austerity I can handle is to limit myself to one drink on February 29th.  But only if it's on the fifth Monday of the month, and following a full moon.  And the drink needs to be a large.

Agreeing with limited snacking.  One thing I have tried to completely avoid is emotional eating, or eating out of boredom or habit.  And it's surprising how much more flavorful food is to me when I'm eating when actually hungry.