You asked about my "diet", so I'll write about it, good thing I've got a free hour.
A diet, in case anyone doesn't know, is simply a nutritional regimen. Diets can have different goals, not necessarily starving yourself to "skin and bones".
My diet is designed to
1. Not be completely tasteless
2. Not be too high in calories
3. Reduce meat consumption
4. Increase vitamin intake
5. Provide a varied menu
Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near enough willpower to stick to an ideal diet, especially in winter.
So I'll write how it's supposed to be, and how it actually turns out.
1. In the morning I always eat porridge made from various grains: primarily oatmeal and millet. Often also a "five-grain mix". Less often - porridge from instant flakes (rice, oat, buckwheat). Sometimes, porridge from just plain rice. I try to buy either Parboiled rice, or brown rice (conversely, minimally processed), in both cases the process preserves vitamins.
Ideally, porridge should be made with water and without additives, but that's just too depressing. Right now I make it half-and-half with milk, and add a little butter (generally it's unhealthy, but at the same time it's healthy if in moderation). I usually put in raisins, sometimes frozen berries, just a few, otherwise it gets too sour.
I measure all this with a special little cup so as not to overdo it, but that's a recent innovation. Cooking the porridge is very, very much helped by a Teflon saucepan, my best purchase over the last year.
Also in the morning I sometimes eat cottage cheese, used to be two packs, now it's one. The cottage cheese varies, from 0.5% to 9%, whatever I get my hands on. I add kefir to it, sometimes "plain" yogurt (without sugar and additives).
2. For lunch I eat what I cooked in advance for several days, when I had more time. Usually it's fried meat (not very much) with rice. Sometimes fried vegetables from a bag, or soup. As a side dish it's also not bad to have corn, pickled cucumbers, or sauerkraut, but it's important not to overdo the amount. I eat meat products (sausage and ham) very rarely, almost never buy them myself, unless someone brings them over.
I plan to switch to stewed vegetables and meat. Fried food, as you know, is unhealthy, and besides, it's cooked with oil. I try to reduce meat in my diet, sometimes I don't eat it for lunch, which automatically means I don't eat it all day. I do, however, eat mac and cheese instead, which of course doesn't help with weight loss, but on the other hand, it's varied and tasty.
For dessert at lunch, I eat a couple/one apple and one carrot (I can't really stuff in much more).
3. In the evening I eat a salad of fresh vegetables and greens, with a little olive or sunflower oil as a dressing. In general I try not to eat bread, but sometimes I buy the darker kind, and have it with the salad.
If I didn't have time to buy vegetables, or I'm not in the mood to eat them, I make microwave popcorn. In general, popcorn is very good and healthy food; all the harm comes from the oil, salt, and sugar. So occasionally it's okay to scarf it down too.
Another important point - I don't buy and try not to eat sweets (pastries, candy, etc.) on weekdays. I do buy and eat fruit, but try to limit myself. Also I've bought and eaten nuts as a snack, but it's hard to hold back and eat fewer of them, so I'll probably stop this practice.
In conclusion, so I'm not considered a sick-in-the-head advocate of "healthy eating", I want to mention that on weekends I eat whatever I want (right now, at least), because otherwise life gets a bit boring.
Plus, I don't count calories, I eat as much as I want. This, of course, really slows down the progress towards fewer kilograms, but I'm not ready for other options yet, especially in winter, when everything around is so dreary.
In general, I break the schedule relatively often, especially if I'm sick. For instance, at work I eat sweets when people treat me, and sandwiches on white bread too.
Improving my diet is easy: I need to reduce portion sizes, remove foods fried in oil, remove butter and milk from my porridge, remove (temporarily) nuts, and most importantly - make no exceptions for the weekends.
I'll tell you kids the most important thing, if you don't already know the obvious. No diets let you lose weight, and then keep it at that mark, if you return to your old habits. A diet is for life. I had a plan to stick to a stricter version until I lost the weight, and then ease up, but overall not change the underlying ideas. The plan is failing so far, but there's hope for the summer, when on weekends instead of visiting eateries I'll be hammering out 200 km on the bike over the weekend, as long as the weather permits.
Man, I really got carried away writing this, I sure missed blogging though.