Weight loss

Whatever foods you like to eat that fit within your calorie goal and provide enough nutrition.

Just eat fewer calories than you burn, that's all that's required for weight loss.

Military diet is woo, unsustainable, and unhealthy. Just eat food. Buy a food scale, weigh everything that goes in your mouth (measure liquids), log it, done.

Yep, if I'd had to cut out chocolate at the start I never would have made it past a few weeks before I gave in and ate everything in the house. Being able to fit in a small amount of chocolate every day is what made it sustainable for me, and after a few months I didn't crave it as much as I used to.

Like @sarahbums said, don't go looking for a quick fix. It took time to put the excess weight on, it'll take time to get it back off. If you do it right, it'll stay off for the longer term.

It might take you a bit of time and experimentation to figure out what works best for you... you might stay full for longer if you eat more protein, or you might do better with more carbs or fats. Perhaps you can have one cookie and leave the rest alone, or perhaps you'll need to stop buying cookies for a while if you can't control yourself and will eat the whole packet. Maybe you don't really care for breakfast so you want to just have a coffee in the morning and save calories for a larger lunch or evening meal - or maybe you need to eat as soon as you get up, plus a couple of snacks between meals, so you'll need to plan your food accordingly.

Everyone is different, so what works for me might not work for you. In general, though, the thing to remember is that there are no "bad foods" and you don't necessarily need to cut anything out of your diet unless you really can't control yourself and limit your portions of that food.

A food scale, patience, and trust in the process will be your best friends.