Severely reducing your food options doesn't make life simpler, but less pleasurable. It mean something as simple as going out for a meal is a PITA. You might be able to kid yourself, that ordering a steak with a salad is nice, but you still don't receive the same level of enjoyment as you would, had you been able to select from the entire menu and eat everything on the plate.
Yup. I'm still eating chocolate but just less of it.
LOL, I started working out with a mandatory 1-2 chunks of a large Toblerone bar around 30 minutes prior to exercise. Now understand that my workouts were a thorough 1.5 hours every second day with 2 all out sprints at the end. This trick worked, and I did train physiological response in my body's metabolism to respond to the intake of chocolate. On vacation, all I had to do was eat a 'high quality' chocolate desert, and I would literally burn & sweat off the calories from dinner as I was physiologically trained to respond that way to chocolate. The problem is that I was now addicted to chocolate and if I would ever fail at exercising on my regular schedule for too long, I would be completely f----d up...
I'm not sure if your metabolism can be trained like that. I know your brain and nervous system can be trained to some degree, even parts you normally don't have direct control of such as your stomach. It's also true you can be addicted to something you like such as choclate.
I think it's more likely what was happening was when you did high intensity exercise, you improved your body's insulin response, so it was less likely to store fat, when you are a food high in fat and processed carbohydrates, such as choclate. The effects will last for a certain period of not exercising, but if you're prone to insulin resistance and weight gain, you'll likely put on weight, if you're inactive and eat processed high fat/carb food for too long. Obivouly you need a food which you treat as a suppliment and are confident you'll only eat, when you're active, to avoid addiction. Perhaps something which is tollerable, but not a favourite would be a better option?
In my experience it is important to keep sugar levels up during excersize to keep the brains working. Especially when doing an outdoors activity like cycling it is important to stay aware of other traffic. My primary source for that is Coca Cola (the real stuff). I'm going through about 27 liters of it annualy but I only drink it combined with being active.
I find not eating enough calories can often be problematic when doing lots of exercise. As mentioned above, when I'm really active I have issue with night eating, which worried me at the start, as I thought it would make me fat again, but then I realised, in my case, it was assiciated with an energy deficit and did not result in any weight gain.
Perhaps I should have done that when I was doing lots of cycling? If would've helped to avoid the night eating. Be careful about the caffine in Cola though and rinse with water, so it doesn't rot your teeth too much. Orange juice could be argued to be a more healthy option, but once you're drinking that much, the effect of the sugar on your body is the same and you don't need all that extra vitamin C anyway. Something containing protein is also a possibility, such as milk, but it's more slowly absorbed and is harder on the digestive system, so is probably not a good idea, before exercise. After a workout is better, as long as it doesn't blunt your appetite too much, you end up not eating as much later.