I believe he advises moderation in meat consumption, like just three or four ounces in a meal. I think he advised, when visiting the supermarket, to keep to the perimeter, where the produce, dairy and butcher sections are, and avoid the area in the middle, containing all of the processed food. Another suggestion; eat like your grandparents did, as much of contemporary food is really unhealthy.
Like the OP, I recently decided I was ready for a change. I’ve lost about 30lbs in the past few months and hope to lose about 15 more. The advice in this thread is excellent. Following the basic advice you are getting and figure out what works for you.
What has been working for me has been to use the app My Fitness Pal to track calories. It just made me think a lot more about what I was eating and helped me to think about food in a different way. Now I kind of think of whether I can “afford” food based on the calories and I weigh the pleasure I get vs. the cost in calories from the item.
I also like a nice meal and a cocktail now and again. I still do those things, but I have to plan for them. If I’m going to go to a ball game and have a beer and a hotdog, then I need to make sure that I make up the difference by not eating as much earlier or later in the day. Basically, I’m trying to think about what I eat more.
Other than when I plan for a splurge on something tasty, but fattening, I established a couple of rules. I cut way, way back on bread and pasta, those are items that I have to plan for. I also cut way back on drinking my calories, as has been mentioned; using an app to track my calories made it really clear how many calories I was chugging each day. An OJ might sound great, but not when it accounts for half your caloric allowance for the day.
All of this sounds like a drag, but I’m actually enjoying my meals more because I’m thinking about them more. If I’m going to eat something fattening, you can bet it is going to be something awesome and not some processed goop served in styrofoam.
For me, it’s kind of like when I quit smoking, I had to be ready to make the change and push through the rough patches to establish healthier habits.
Sorry, this made me laugh out loud. Before the war, my grandparents lived on potatoes and onions and chicken fat. During the war, they were systematically starved. After the war, they f*cking loved 50s-era processed foods.
Which part of this should I emulate for my health?
OK, I found where Michael Pollan talked about this. What he said was not to eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Basically he advised against modern processed foods.
This is, in my opinion, the best advice anyone can ever get regarding food.
I’ll just address one thing in the OP that wasn’t covered. DON’T do gluten-free unless you have to. Why? Three reasons:
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It’s extremely expensive to buy “gluten free” versions of food
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“Gluten free” versions almost always have more calories than not gluten free
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Don’t make a single type of food into the enemy
I eat gf because I have to. If you don’t have to, revel in your freedom! Eat sushi with real soy sauce! Have a sandwich with recognizable bread! Make a meatloaf! 
Echoing the comments about dropping sodas and limiting sweets. It is tough to ditch the sugars, at first, but I found after a while I do not have a taste for them any more. I don’t crave chocolate as much as I used-to, and would prefer a fruit pie or home-made jam as a sweet treat now. I cannot handle sodas at all - too sweet. My family really likes to overdo it with the sweets, as in cake and ice cream, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and chocolate cake with raspberry filling. I find all of that so incredibly sweet now I cannot endure more than a couple bites (I usually just pass, to their consternation). Coffee - black only for me.
Getting rid of a lot of the sugar leaves room, calorie-wise, for other things I enjoy more. Potato chips, good cheese, and good wine are still my guilty pleasures.
Also, I have cut way back on the meat. I am pretty active and I still don’t think I need a serving of meat at every meal. I try to limit meat to one meal per day at the most (sometimes not at all) and only a modest serving at that.
Pollan is good. I’d add to that, if you’re trying to lose weight, make protein a priority-- doesn’t have to be meat, of course – but often protein (yogurt, whatever) will cure a hungry food-craving feeling.
But if you want another quick, simple rule: Cut out the white food.
Don’t eat potatoes, rice, white bread, pasta, etc. All that stuff is just calories that don’t make you feel full and don’t provide any other nutrition, which is the worst possible thing to eat if you’re trying to lose weight, right? Don’t replace it with anything, just skip it. Have a steak and a salad, and leave off the potato all together. Milk is not a white food by this criteria, but cream probably is.
Oh, cool. Sign me up for the beer-and-chocolate-cake diet!
I’ve heard the “don’t eat white food” advice (some doctor who used to do a newspaper column back when would recommend this) and it’s mostly good advice for cutting out high-carb bulk. but I wouldn’t say “white” food doesn’t provide any nutrition. Even the humble white potato provides fiber a-plenty, tons of potassium, and lots of other vites.
Mind you, white bread, rice and cheap pasta is probably less-nutritious but then again they’re highly processed and a potato is straight from the ground.
And what others say about re-training your palate to enjoy less sugar is true. I’ve never in my life been a soda drinker but always had a voracious “sweet tooth.” I seriously craved sugar. A meal wasn’t done until I’d had dessert. I would eat entire pints of Ben and Jerry’s at one sitting. Chocolate croissants for breakfast. Etc. Somewhere in my late 40s I phased out sugary food; not sure exactly why (I’ve never had a weight issue and always been skinny but it was when I was going through the menopause from hell and I think that had something to do with it) and not only do I not miss it, but ice cream and such now tastes TOO sweet to me. A few bites, maybe, and I’m done. I also cut down on carbs around the same time because during meno I was getting sugar crashes and horrible fatigue and realized it was linked to what I was eating. My weight remains unchanged but I think it’s had a positive effect on my overall energy.
I’ll echo the Mediterranean diet recommendations. This summer I’m working in a British university and we’ve had approximately 600 Italian students attending two week courses. Not one is overweight. Not a single one. There have been a few young women with ample curves (however hard I try not to look, I can’t completely ignore them for risk of barging into them in the hallways) but not a single overweight Italian teen have I seen.
We were discussing this today, and they think they move about the same as British teens (not that much), eat a large lunch and dinner, but all of the food is home-made - even the bread - and they (the girls) learn to cook from their mothers and grandmothers.
My own advice is to only start cooking when you’re hungry. Yes, you may feel a little faint before your meal is cooked - I often do - but you shouldn’t be overeating at any point by doing this. Also no processed foods, whenever possible.
Practice this exercise early and often:
Smile. Say “That’s interesting.” Stop.
This is the exercise that you need to master to counter the overwhelming number of Nosey Parkers who feel compelled to tell you that you’re eating wrong. Even if you don’t talk about the changes you make, people notice and all the amateur Dr.Oz’s (a terrifying critter if ever there was one) pop out of the wood work. I once lost 30 lbs over the course of a summer. I didn’t tell anyone I was making changes, I didn’t talk about my decision, I just knuckled down and did it. You know what happened? Freaking co-worker started telling everyone that I either had AIDS (early 90s) or was doing drugs. So I spoke up and told them what I was doing to stop the rumors and BAM! All the advice from people who’d started Adkins or Weight Watchers or that RIDICULOUS cabbage soup diet just poured out. Mind you, these advice givers had not stuck with their plans or lost any weight, but they were sure ready to tell me that the way I was doing it was all wrong.
If you can tolerate gluten, I have seen no reliable evidence that a gluten free diet is beneficial to those who can digest gluten. Likewise, that paleo nonsense is the source of a million eye rolls. Who wants to copy the diet of a species that had a life expectancy of 30 years and is extinct? Not really an incentive in my mind.
My strategy has been to make a concerted effort to make all of my own meals. Not an easy proposition if you’re cooking for one. It seems like you’re spending your LIFE washing dishes. I’m also not a big dairy person. I don’t much like milk. But I bought a Ninja and every morning now, I plop a serving of 0% greek yogurt, half a cup of skim milk, a banana, a teaspoon of coffee creamer with artificial sweetner, and some berries or cherries or a peach in the blender and drink that down before I eat anything else. Two servings of fruit and two of low fat dairy. Done right off the bat.
Identify your problem areas. Lots of people don’t like vegetables. If that’s your situation, experiment with salads or spices or different cooking methods. Determine to try a new vegetable every week. Personally, I found I love brussels sprouts if I cut them in half and steam them, then spray them with Olivo spray, and blacken them in a hot pan with red pepper. Who knew?
Oooh, bad news–Pollan also says (in Food Rules) that if you want junk food or treats, you should make them from scratch yourself. So, you’d have to spend a lot of time baking cakes and home-brewing…
I’ll second the “don’t drink your calories” advice above. I make exceptions for wine and the occasional cocktail, but have given up soda-pop, milk, lemonade, and most ay other drink with calories.
For me, losing fifty pounds was all about figuring out portion control, and eating more veggies. I strongly recommend buying a box of those microwaveable zip-locks. I found I ate a lot more veggies when I could just toss them in the microwave with minimal fuss. You can wash the bags and reuse them, which helps because they’re freaking expensive.
Just because one eats gluten free doesn’t automatically mean gluten free processed foods must be used. I mostly eat gluten free because I am better able to manage my weight that way - but I don’t eat “gluten free” packaged/processes foods sold as such in the store. I eat mostly fruits, vegetables, a little meat, and very few sweets. No bread, pasta, potatoes or anything else that spikes blood sugar. Eating foods that are low on the glycemic index is key.
In other words, you eat low carb. If you eat like that but are worried that your soy sauce for your stir fry has wheat in it, you shouldn’t. (And if you’re eating low carb but not having stir fry, you’re missing out.)
Pizza… meat lovers.
Snacks and desserts are almost always fresh fruits. About half of the rest of your food, by weight, should be green/yellow/orange/red vegetables (not potatoes), cooked or fresh. The remainder, about 40%, should be split between grains/starches and meat/poultry/fish/eggs/dairy.
He also declares that anything you receive through your car window is not food. I break that rule regularly, but I still think it’s fun.
Primary source of information: what the health authorities of your country have to say on the matter. Adjust that information to your personal needs (allergies, diabetes, etc.) Contrasting the information provided by heath authorities of several different countries is interesting, too.
Once you know what to avoid (personal needs), the most basic concept is how often a week you eat certain foods. Fruit every day, pasta once a week, etc. Makes meal planning a lot more simple. If you’re overweight or getting on in years, stop eating before you’re completely full.
IMO, there’s a lot of screwball advice out there. Just eat a varied diet and don’t eat too much.