So here's the thing: I have some sort of compulsive disorder with food. I haven't been diagnosed but I know from countless experiences that some foods cause me to eat and eat and eat to no end. Bread is one of those foods. I had almost an entire package of rye bread last night, with butter and cream cheese and regular cheese and cucumber and lettuce and the rest of the whole nine yards. It's as if my stomach never gets full with these specific foods. (Then again, with some foods, like eggs and bacon and other protein rich goods, it fills up rather quickly.)
So what this means in practice is that I need to have constant vigilance when it comes to what I eat. First of all, I need to stay away from these specific foods altogether. Secondly, if I decide I must have some of those dangerous foods, I set clear restrictions as to what I can have and when. I came up with a practical approach to this a couple of years back:
Once a week, usually Saturday morning, I would go to the store, pick up a little bit of everything I wanted, return home, and watch some excellent scifi movie while eating.
From Sunday to Friday, I would keep a strict leash on my diet, mostly a low-carb diet, and then do a carb refeed on Saturday morning. But it was restricted to Saturday morning, and if I wanted to have that notorious bread, I would buy one of those individually sold little buns to avoid overeating. (Buying a large loaf and having one slice doesn't work - my mind would know there's more in the house and I would go get it. But with the individual little bun, I already know when buying it there won't be any more of that, and naturally I wouldn't have an urge to eat more.)
So back then, one pint of ice cream (it's a lot, I know, but it's still a restricted amount), one bun, a small bag of candy for example. And that excellent scifi movie. (I highly recommend Steven Spielberg's Minority Report from 2002. It's one hell of a good movie.) This helped me stay in line during the week - because I knew good things (most of all that movie I could choose freely) would wait after a long and hard work week on Saturday morning.
Try it. One Saturday or Sunday (or whenever you have a day off) morning, go to the store, get something for a treat, rent a movie you chose yourself (no need to take others' opinion into account since you'll watch the movie alone), and have a couple of hours to yourself.
RK