On feeling hungry while losing weight

As an update: I've just hit the 5 kilos lost mark.  Weight Watchers gave me a little star on my online chart.  It wasn't very exciting really...  Because photographs for weight loss posts are hard to take, here's a photograph I took in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens instead:

I've realised something that I think is not commonly understood about dieting and losing weight.  Namely - you are going to feel hungry. 

Here's how I see it working:  If I have eaten "more than enough" food my body will store the extra calories as fat.  If I have eaten "enough" food my body won't store any fat, but it won't use any existing fat either.  To lose existing fat I need to eat "less than enough" so my body needs to use up some of the stored fat, thereby losing weight.  So feeling hungry is actually a good thing. 

I've also found that a meal needs to include some fat (and I don't do "fake" fat like margarine or other butter replacements) or I will feel hungry no matter how much I ate.  A little fat in a meal is essential or my body wants to keep eating until it gets that little bit of fat.

It's a reminder that I haven't eaten too much and will therefore continue to lose weight, my body using the energy from the stored fat.

I've tried diets where what you eat is exactly dictated and they really didn't work for me.  The kind of diets where they advertise "eat as much as you want and still lose weight, never feel hungry again!".The portions were always huge (and very expensive to cook) yet I was hungry all the time because of the low calories.  I could never finish those huge portions but it felt wrong to not eat them because I was feeling so hungry.  Now I've made peace with feeling hungry it seems a lot easier to continue.  If I expect to feel hungry at some points during the day it's not a huge problem any more.