Healthy easy diet to follow

Just eat what you would normally eat at a calorie deficit. Doesn't get much easier than that!

Eating healthy is really just common sense. If you ate okay before just log and see where you can cut calories. If you paid no attention to nutrition and find focusing on that more will help your motivation (or is part of the overall change you are seeking), then think about getting sufficient protein (MFP's goal or 1 gram per 80% of your goal weight in lbs or something like that), about eating veggies and/or fruit with your meals (a variety if possible), adding in foods that have fiber (whole grains as a sub for refined grains at least on occasion or beans, veggies and fruit also serve this purpose), stuff like that. Think about serving sizes. Don't feel like you have to cut out foods you love, but if you find you are eating lots of high calorie foods you don't care about or in excessive amounts, that's an easy place to cut back.

Basically think about what you understood as a balanced meal as a kid--it really doesn't have to be more complicated and if you log the calories you'd be surprised at how you don't need to do any special diet meals to reduce them to a reasonable level.

Its called eat food. Mostly vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, meat, eggs. Dairy and grains too if that's your choice. There a millions of easy recipes that can be googled. Don't be afraid to play with seasonings and try new foods

TeaBea wrote: »

OP - eat less processed food. Processing can take away nutrients.

No, processing is not the issue. That's just injecting an unnecessarily confusing issue. Yogurt is processed, and has nutrients, skinless, boneless chicken breast, same. There are plenty of packaged grains, breads, pasta, quinoa, etc., that have a range of nutritional profiles. Beyond that, canned tomatoes and beans, baby cut carrots, bagged spinach, and frozen veggies are processed and yet for many make it a lot easier to eat foods they have not been used to eating (and make vegetables and fruits available out of season, which most currently are in most parts of the US and Europe). Also, there's no evidence these are fewer nutrients--frozen veggies probably have more than other others available at the grocery store.

Similarly, while I'm not a fan of prepared meals since I think home cooking results in usually tastier and more satisfying meals for the same calories, and is a good skill to have, there's a huge range of prepackaged meals and some are quite nutritionally sound. If someone is surviving on fries and mac and cheese (not assuming that, it's a hypothetical) doing something that seems easier than going to scratch cooking like using some more nutritionally sound prepackaged meals can be a good step.

Your body needs protein, fat and carbs. Log what you normally eat. If you are eating a half portion BUT hungry a short time later.....then you need to make a change.

I agree with this. Great way to start.

The change is to log your food and look at the protein, fat, and carb numbers. Protein, fat, a fiber is generally more satisfying. Let's say you eat sugary cereal.....a better choice would be something with whole grains (more fiber, and protein) or eat eggs, or Greek yogurt (protein). I like flavored Greek yogurt sprinkled with FiberOne and chopped walnuts.

This too (and I note that you aren't telling OP to get rid of processed foods here).

Veggies are great for adding volume to meals. Most are low calorie. Start with a lean protein source, add veggies (fiber) and fat.

Yes, this is a good way to approach it. I'd say think of the fat as how to cook the veggies or accents to make the meal tastier (some avocado or cheese or salad dressing), and feel free to add some starchier side also (potatoes, corn, rice, grains). Like I said above, what a kid thinks of as a normal or standard meal, before we start trying to overthink it.