So I will first emphasize, try to avoid a "diet" and feeling the need to eliminate anything.

Unless you just really struggle with impulse control and you need those guard rails, for me the only way that I managed to loose about 45 lbs was by looking at things this way.

I did not cut a single thing out of my diet, what I did was make smart choices/swaps at home that still satisfied cravings most of the time so when I want to go to the store and get a candy bar I will go to the store and get a candy bar and not feel bad about it.

Easy one was not keeping soda in the house anymore, I have switched almost entirely to water outside of milk in my coffee. When I am out I may sometimes grab a soda but meh.

I make homemade peanut butter. I buy dry roasted unsalted peanuts, add in a small amount of salt and its great.

Trying a bunch of different apples and finding the sweetest apples I could find, and then eating that with peanut butter for some added protein.

Strawberries with chocolate humas.

I started making my own chicken stock which had more flavor and less sodium.

Making my own heartier soups that tasted great.

Also... Seasoning. More than just salt and pepper. Some really good (non American generally) seasoning will go a long way and is basically a zero calory way to really good food.

Other random small changes that are very situational for you. Look at your snacking habbits, that is where most of my issues came in.

Where I could I would choose things that would also increase my protein intake. I didn't go crazy. I never counted calories or anything and the weight just came off. Sure I could have lost a bit more had I done that, but I am at the point now that is the 10 more lbs going to make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of things as I work towards gaining more muscle anyways.

I realize this may not work for everyone, but I am not on any sort of "diet" in any traditional sense of the word. What I am doing now is perfectly sustainable for the rest of my life because I can still live my life and largely eat what I want within reason. I had taco bell today and don't feel bad about it in the slightest.

I should add that during most of this weight loss I did not change my workout habbits. I was focusing on my nutrition first. I do live in a city and I walk everywhere, but that did not change in this time.

This is what I am trying to do as well. Switch out bad habits for healthy ones. But it looks like I also need to dial down the quantity — maybe drop to two meals a day.

> Easy one was not keeping soda in the house anymore

Yeah, no shit. As I mentioned in another comment, that was a low hanging fruit that saw me lose nearly 10 pounds when I cut that out of my diet.

I want to scream at people when I see them hanging 6-packs off the sides of their grocery carts — or seem them stacking cases of soda in the cart undercarriages.

U.S. grocery stores are depressing places when you come to recognize, as has been said, that more or less the whole store minus the end-aisles (where produce, deli, etc. are) is just processed crap.