Any advice on how to control cravings?
I am a hard gainer and needed to focus on eating, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
One thing: Have good snacks available: Prepare them right after a meal (or while cooking): Nuts, fruit, veggies.
Another thing: Just alter your portions slightly. Like a few grams less of meat of fat and more veggies in place.
And for me the transition to intermittent fasting was helpful. That is, not eating for 12-18 hours per day and having an eating window of 12-6 hours respectively. You could try 12:12 first. This will accomplish a few things:
a) Give your gut time for clearing up and maintenance work.
b) Trigger autophagy (more with longer fasting times): The body will recycle a lot of old, worn-out cells, clearing up the mess. It does not do this, when constant food supply brings new "cell material" every few hours.
c) Alter your insulin response: When you first try it, you might feel very low on blood sugar (cravings, feeling cold, headaches), but your body will adapt and you will feel less hungry. You will actually learn to control appetite and to feel ok (and even great!) while being hungry. This is a huge psychological shift and will give you a lot of freedom. Trust me, it is big.
d) And then it will likely also decrease your caloric intake - just because there is less time available.
e) And maybe your body composition will change even without changing macros or total intake (this is studied in mice, and some people report the same for humans).
16:8 works perfect for a lot of males (12:12 often better for females). But preliminary research suggests that as long as your are fasting for at least 12 hours per day, 5x per week you will get a lot of benefits.