What should I be looking for when eating healthy?

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For the people on here that have lost weight or know how to, what kind of diet plans or meals should I using? Any advice is appreciated.

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Keto worked for me, but I did it dirty and I think my sodium intake was way too high.

Now I just eyeball my calories. Eat a consistent 500 calorie lunch, then a moderate portion of a home cooked meal most nights. No snacking, unless it’s unsalted cashews, fresh fruit, or a salad.

Prioritize protein. Don't eat anything with a paragraph of ingredients. Drink a shite load of water. Get good sleep. Lift weights. Cook at home and meal prep and proportion it out ahead of time. Limit alcohol. Take some walks throughout the day.

Ideally you'll track all your food in an app like my fitness pal and eat in a deficit. But if that's too much of a commitment just follow the advice above.

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I'm not obese or anything

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I am 5'11", 215 pounds currently.

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You’re obese.

Easiest way: Only purchase and consume foods on the perimeter of the grocery store: veggies, fruits, meat, some dairy. Healthy food is perishable.

Slightly harder way: get an app and track calories and macros.

Eat as close to nature as possible. I suggest an animal/fruit based diet. Prioritize protein. Cut out all the bad oils.

If you are lifting you will need the calories, so be careful with how much you cut. You don't need to be in a huge calorie deficit to see results. Stay away from diet plans that you listed.

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pwejr88

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All solid advice i was going to post so no need to now.

instead i will hit something no one else has yet.

Learn basic nutrition. Do you know what a BMR is? Do you know what your BMR is? There are plenty of easy calculators online. in general, most men are around 1900 calories a day. That's what you need to be caloric neutral if in a complete vegetative state. Your general lifestyle will determine what you burn on top of that. Mostly sedentary office work? then its not much more than that 1900 and use that or 2000 to make it easy as baseline. A lot of people "diet" and dont even know what their caloric intake should be. For weight loss, most people would recommend 1 lb a week for a healthy, good achievable goal. That's roughly a 3000 calories deficit a week.

From there learn how to accurately calculate calories from your intake. The only way to consistently do this is to measure foods and learn what their calories are per given weight. This sounds harder than it really is, and becomes second nature after awhile. Outside of that, paying attention to packaged foods nutritional labels helps a ton. Lets be honest, not every single thing you eat is going to be completely fresh and home made. that's fine. so use the labels. Try to avoid too much packaged food though because...

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Is it more important to eat less carbs? Less sugar? Less sodium? More protein?

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yes. and packaged foods tend to be much higher in all those things you don't want. Cutting simple sugars and fats goes ALONG way for most people. Less salt will also make you in general feel better. This is a tough thing for some folks, especially for the first few weeks. Simple sugars and fats release dopamine. Our body wants us to know these are GOOD things because from a survival standpoint, its a high calorie source. What our biology doesn't know is that there will never be a shortage of those high fat high sugar food sources because of modern times. Hence, with the dopamine release, people essentially are addicted to junk food. If its a big part of your diet, you need to kick the addiction, literally.

Now dont be afraid to be a human being, have a actually enjoyable snack or small meal now and then. its ok. Just dont fall into modern media's idea of cheat meals. I F'ing hate it when i see a magazine cover or online article and they talk about "The Rocks Cheat meal!!!!" and talk about him eating 2 pizzas or some stupid shite.
1.You arent The rock. You probably weren't blessed of god tier genetics and are juicing out of the arse with a personal team to support you.
2. Even with all that, im call BS on some of those cheat meals. It's a publicity stunt. Keep your cheats modest. Couple slices of pizzas, not the whole pizzeria.

And of course....if thats all too much. Just eat less.

I am going to be a Devil's Advocate here and challenge OP to NOT track macros. I think tht he can make really good strides by focusing on only eating whole foods, and when feeling 'snacky' going for fruit or a high-protein meal like a greek yogurt.

I track my food, and I hate that I do. I am actively working to remove that from my life.

Yeah, I don't disagree that there is value. I guess I would just go with lifestyle changes first and then use macro tracking as another tool to bust out later.