I thought it would be really nice if everyone can show their ideas or strategies on how to make good food diet/appetite friendly. To lose about 20lbs I am planning on excersising and eating the least amount of processed/junk foods I can, and cut out almost all of my sugar intake (even though I eat lots of fruit which is hight in sugar, but I figure good, filling, natural sugars). Can you share your meal or snack ideas with me to make my diet more interesting and healthy??

There are probably some good ideas in the Nutrition/Recipes section of the forum.

My snacks tend to be easy to grab - carrots, celery, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, wholegrain crackers, a glass of milk or unsweetened tomato juice, vegetable soup, occasionally almonds (if I think I haven't eaten enough), lowfat diet yoghurt, fruit.

My usual lunch is wholemeal crackers - not usually Jatz/Ritz cause they have more fat in them. I buy the ones you snap into little squares. and eat 8 squares rather than 2 slices of bread. It seems like more food to me this way. Then I top them with lowfat cottage cheese, a little low fat hard cheese, or a small tin of tuna, plus a sliced tomato. If I am trying extra hard to make them appealing, I make them into little towers, with little pieces of other veges - slices of mushroom, cucumber, capsicum, olive maybe. If I'm feeling hungry I have extra veges - like the snacks above. Usually I have a small piece of fruit too.

If you don't have issues with sodium, soup and whole grain noodles, crackers or bread is an excellent low calorie meal. I like miso soup with edemame or beans, lots of veggies and buckwheat noodles. Yummy. For snacks, I like a few nuts, a banana or a lara bar (they are just fruits and nuts, no additives or sugar). If I'm at home, I love to snack on raw veggies and hummus, sometimes with a few whole grain crackers.