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I could easily write pages on my thoughts, opinions and experiments in simplified nutrition, but instead I will just give it to you in bullet form. Here are some of the rules I applied to save me time and effort with great results.

• More is more – The more meals you eat per day the better. Anything under five times a day isn’t helping your metabolism. Just because the rest of the world wants to eat three times a day doesn’t make it the best way. I have had the best luck trimming down with eating 7+ times a day.
• Keep a Diet Journal – This is hands down the best way to stick to an eating plan. Plan out a weekly or daily eating schedule, track down what you ate at the end of the day. I will attach a handy spreadsheet to simplify this process for those interested later.
• Design several easy to prepare meals and eat them repeatedly through the week – I love cooking but I hate doing it every night.
• Cook your meals a week in advance and freeze them – The is called batching. I like to have my ‘primary foods’ prepared in advance so I can just nuke them and be on my way. Usually this involves eating chicken or beef several times a week (or day) but it is a massive time saver. Two hours of cooking on Sunday is a lot better then an hour of cooking daily. This can be done with hand made soups and stews too!
• Pick out simple to cook foods at the Grocery store – That does not mean they need to unhealthy choices. Frozen vegetables and vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables, canned beans and fish, cottage cheese and yogurt, eggs and egg whites. All easy to prepare for a meal, all inexpensive at the grocery store.
• Avoid foods containing Trans Fat – If you see the words Hydrogenated, Partially Hydrogenated, Shortening or Margarine toss it. Trans Fats are fats your body cannot use for energy and only serve one purpose: Keeping you fat.
• Don’t drink your calories – Soda, juice and even milk will really add to your daily calorie total. Sure juice and milk are nutritious, but they do not fill you up as much as an apple or bowl of yogurt will leading you to consume unnecessary calories. Water is far better for you.
• Drink lots of water – I don’t think eight glasses is enough personally, so I try to put down 12+ a day. That is even before counting my coffees/teas/etc.
• It’s not a question of how much, but what you eat – I eat 2800 calories a day to maintain my weight. Actually its probably closer to 3000 calories based on my weekly average.  Seems like a lot doesn’t it? Well 80-90% of those calories are nutritious, healthy foods that come from my planned meals.