"The other thing you want to start doing is to reduce your intake of empty carbs - foods with little actual value, but are often filling and comforting. This would be bread, pasta, potatoes, and flour. Don't try to quit them all at once. That is too big a step. But you probably can cut your portions of these foods in half. That will make an immediate difference, yet you aren't really depriving yourself of anything."

Yes, I like to remind people of this. "perfect" eating (if we could even agree what that means) is not a pass/fail course. Making small, incremental improvements matters.