I made it a point to never be hungry when I was losing weight. I ate at least 6 times a day, every 2 hours. I don't like being hungry, I make really bad food decisions when I'm hungry so preventing hunger was one of the keys to my success. I ate large volumes of lower calorie foods - concentrating on foods with high nutritional value over foods with low nutritional value.
I wanted to eat things I liked, things I could eat forever. I needed a plan for the rest of my life in order to lose weight and keep it off. I had to accept that I personally ate terribly and I had to give up the foods with little to no nutritional value and eat lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean protein, low fat dairy and healthy fats.
Typical day (when I was losing weight, just for example purposes):
B - 1/4 cup eggbeaters, microwaved, wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla with spinach leaves and tons of salsa (sometimes I chopped up a morning star farms veggie sausage or added chopped turkey for more protein oomph)
S - horizons non fat plain yogurt mixed with fresh berries, I also like low fat cottage cheese with mandarin oranges
L - half turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread (spinach, tomato, onions, spicy mustard), cup of bean soup (like vegetarian chili or lentil), I also love big spinach salads with grilled chicken, some seeds/nuts, dried cranberries, grape tomatoes and low fat balsamic vinaigrette
S - fruit
S - cut up veggies (carrot sticks, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, pepper strips) with dip (like home made hummus)
D - I always picture dividing the plate into fourths - 1/2 veggies, 1/2 whole grain carb, 1/2 lean protein (little bit of healthy fat, like sauteeing in olive oil) and most of the stuff I make for dinner follows this "formula" like...
- stir fry with shrimp and lots of vegetables over brown rice
- Chicken and spinach/mushroom quesadilla with whole wheat tortillas
- home made pasta sauce with turkey-chicken sausage over whole wheat pasta
- grilled salmon with a baked sweet potato and steamed broccoli
- home made soup with chickpeas, spinach, tomatoes, leeks with a piece of whole wheat bread
S - fruit (I really liked to warm up a couple of tablespoons of apple butter and dip a banana in it or a baked apple with blueberries and a few walnuts)
18 months of maintenance - I still eat just like this, just allow more calories everyday. Which is great, now I can fit whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter easily into my calorie total for the day!