I totally agree, MissLori. The way of eating that you are following is pretty much what I'm doing, which is pretty much following Dr. Rob Thompson's Glycemic Load Diet. Nothing is really forbidden, and I don't count anything, but I limit and for the most part stay away from the white stuff (sugar, processed flours, white potatoes). If I want that stuff, I'll have a small portion on my plate. And if I do want a sweet, I'll have a small portion at the end of a meal so as to reduce the insulin spike that comes with eating it. Cravings are gone, and the urge to binge on junk that I've been deprived of is also gone because I haven't been deprived!

And I don't eat a fruit or steel cut oats, oat bran cereal, etc., without eating some extra protein with it, just like your bread and p.b.

A visual that I've found useful regarding portion size -- because I'm all about eating plenty! -- is when I'm having a smaller, volume-wise, meal than I think will satisfy me, I imagine the actual size of my stomach and how much food it would take to fill it, which really isn't all that much. Once I've eaten my smaller meal that I doubted would fill me up, I find that it was plenty. This has worked especially well when I have a bowl of soup (home-made sausage-lentil is one of my favorites) for lunch.

This is a tough time of year for me, starting with Thanksgiving, then birthdays, and ending with Christmas and New Year's. Lots of temptations. I'm debating whether or not to bake any cookies this year. It just doesn't seem like the holidays without home-baked cookies, but if I bake them, I'll eat too many. Who needs them?!