I'm currently trying to modify my diet, which has been extremely poor in the past few months. Fast food was multiple times per week thing I would indulge in... and it's just got to stop. My goal right now is to lose 30lbs... I weigh 210 right now.

One of my problems is that I cannot leave my meals to chance... I need to set myself up for success. If I don't, I end up cheating and picking whatever is the easiest and tastiest that I can get quickly on my way to/from work or after work.

First thing I had to break was breakfast sandwiches. Bacon egg & cheese.. etc.

I have successfully replaced this with a Nature Valley Dry Granola Bar and Chobani Yogurt for breakfast every day. It's easy to grab 5 of them at the store, and I keep a big bulk sized granola box in the pantry.

Second is lunch. Fast food... I feel like I've been addicted to it and I just need to stop. I've replaced this with Either a Chicken Breast or Turkey sub from Subway, with no dressing, tomatos, lettuce, spinach, red onions, and cucumbers on a 6" whole wheat roll. It's not the most flavor packed thing to eat, but it's quick, relatively cheap, and healthier.

Dinner... well I still haven't figured that one out yet. Which is why I'm writing this post.

I want to refine and improve my breakfast / lunch plans... and figure out something simple, quick, and repeatable I can do for dinner. My dream would be to be able to eat a pill three times a day that would give me all the nutrients I need... but I know that's not realistic. But the end goal is the same: I want to take the choice out of my meal selection process so I can make it harder to stray from my plan or cheat... because I "forgot" to set something up for the next meal.

I am open to cooking things, but I'd be doing so on the weekends so foods need to keep for the week. I have a BJs club membership, so any bulk items like that I can get in a good quantity that will help me keep on this.

Yesterday I joined a Gym (LA Fitness) because I'm not really seeing results with just diet modification. I need to add cardio and strength training in to have the proper amount of exercise per day. I know my meal plan isn't great... but it's a start.

Please let me know how you would improve my breakfast/lunch plan... and suggestions on how to extend that thinking to dinner. I'd love to find ways to use base ingredients (pre-cooked chicken breast) that could apply to both lunch and dinner.

The first thing I would say is I think everyone has a different body, so you need to figure out what works for you by trial and error. First off I would start keeping a food log of everything that goes into your mouth. I would recommending getting a scale and weighing things that are not single packaged.

For me I am very sensitive to "calories in vs calories out" ... and I found i have to keep my calories down to around 1000 to 1100 per day in order to lose weight. Howeever some of that depends on how active you are and what your base metabolic rate is (most people have a BMR of around 2200 to 2500 calories per day, so that's how much you'd need just to maintain). YOu need to be below that in order to lose weight. So if you burn say 2200 calories per day and you are eating 1100 calories per day, that gives you a deficit of 1100 calories per day. At that rate it will take about 3 days to burn 1 pound of fat (3500 calories = 1 lb fat).

Of course there are a lot of wildcards with this. Much better to be low carb and low sugar, because if you have high blood sugar or are insulin resistant, it will be practically impossible to lose weight. I would consider finding a good online nutritionist to assist you in designing a healthy meal plan.

One last funny story, When I was younger, around 45 years old. I lost 100 lbs on a Macaroni and CHeese and Chocolate Chip Cookie diet. The trick for me was making that just my 1 single meal every day. So I was basically on a OMAD (One Meal a Day) diet. I kept my total calories around 1100 total per day. So for me at that age, it didnt really matter what I ate as long as I only ate 1100 calories per day. I lost 100 pounds in about 10 months (10 lbs per month on average). I am pretty sure that would not work for me today as I am about 20 years older. Also I can't really endorse what I did back then as "healthy" but i did lose weight.

In any case, you need to measure your foods and IMHO calorie count in order to have success. But again we are all SO DIFFERENT with different dynamics in our bodies. WHat works for one person might not work for another. Good Luck!