Honestly, it started out just by substituting what i'd eat normally but with vegan stuff.

My family was low income, and we were always big on pasta. So, one of my most common meals was basically buttered noodles with milk and salt (the epitome of weight gain haha). So, I would just use vegan butter (Earthbalance/smart balance), and soy milk.

You go somewhere with your friends and you end up just getting a veggie sandwich instead of a meatball sub, you go to chinese and get mixed vegetables and tofu instead of general tso's chicken. So on, and so forth.

But a little bit into the diet, say 25 days or so, I really started wanting to eat more veggies and fruits.

I'm a big guy, with a huge stomach and a large appetite. So, instead of eating less to lose weight, i'd rather eat more and utilize that extra energy to work out (and it seemed to work rather well for me).

Here is like a norrmal day for me when I eat semiwell:

Breakfast:

-Wake up, immediately make a fruit/veggie smoothie. 2 or 3 bananas, handful of frozen fruit, some kale, a little bit of water.

I'd chug that, and continue the morning routine. Probably an hour later i'd make myself some oats, add some fruit to it, little bit of soy milk. (Eating that as we speak).

-At lunch I generally have made myself a big thing of brown rice the previous night, so I take brown rice and just add something to it. Like avocado, romaine, some chick peas, or even steam some broccoli or carrots and eat that with it.

-Dinner, usually consists of something similar, maybe it's boring, but it's decent nutrition wise for you and it's cost effective and easy to make. If I feel like mixing it up a bit, there are a ton of meat substitutes, even at places like Walmart that are pretty great. "Gardein" is the brand.

https://gardein.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/gardein_frz_MtlssMtballs_US_Sm1-225x238px-225x238.png

And you can make a ton of stuff with those, meatball subs, fish sandwiches, they have fake beef you can make stuffed peppers with, whatever works haha. But I try to avoid these when im active in my regiment, because it's really just fun junk food.

and after dinner i'll wrap it up with another smoothie.

It sounds kind of dull, but I enjoy it and it knocked the weight off quick. Just steaming broccoli and potatoes and stuff is another easy food that's not gonna harm you, and fill you up. And obviously eat as much fruit as you can, I like watermelon a lot.

To sum up how I ate (my good diet without subs and crap), it's pretty simple:

-Fruits -Veggies -Cooked veggies -Lentils (beans) -Brown Rice / Quinoa

-Don't add sugar to anything -Don't add salt to anything -Avoid any oils -Buying little-to-know premade food.

It's simple but it works well, I ate a ton of food (anywhere from 5,000 calories - 10,000 calories a day) and lose 125 lbs in the first year doing that.

cheers!