It seems to me that the amount of food is not as important as the type of food you eat. It's easy to eat less but not so easy to lose fat. If hunger and portion size are a problem for you, try herbal supplements that are safe. Pretty much anything with potassium (L-Glutamine , Chickweed, etc.) are safe and natural options.

Those may help in the short term but starving yourself leads to less fat loss because metabolism goes into the safety zone and shuts down. I may be guessing now but a figure I've read is you want to stay at least within 1200-1300 calories for optimal Basal fat loss.

Just some of my thoughts...