Lots of protein--fish, chicken, meat, bacon, ham, whole-milk cheeses, eggs. Butter, cream, goat-milk yogurt.
NO WHEAT products or anything containing HFCS, almost no sugar. Fruit is an occasional indulgence. Carbohydrates come from vegetables and salad, without commercial-type dressings and toppings on the salads. When you start reading labels, you realize that there is an incredible amount of sugar in everything you find in a grocery, and it screws your health up seriously.
Look at the Wheat Belly Diet I am not sensitive to gluten at all, but I think this guy really has it nailed. Our digestive systems did not evolve to handle the grain products we've been eating for the last five or ten thousand years, and we do better with a more protein-based diet. The "well-balanced" rice/pasta/potato high-carb diet the federal government has been pushing on us for years has led to diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease for millions of people, problems that hardly affected our ancestors at all.
So this means giving up all the things I love--bread, standard doughnuts, pasta, rice, cornbread, muffins, and candy. However, after a week or so of cold-turkey withdrawal, you start not wanting this stuff anymore, and the idea of eating a piece of cake starts to seem nauseating. The Wheat Belly Diet does involve a lot of delicious breads and treats made with non-wheat flours, so it's not all bad.
After I had each of my kids, I lost scores of pounds eating a protein/vegetables diet. I can share clothes with my daughter, my blood sugar is back in the normal range, my asthma is much improved, my skin looks fantastic for my age, my arthritis doesn't bother me much, I'm sleeping better, and I have a lot of energy.
Caveat: I am really poor right now and don't have the money for treats and snacks anyway. It saves money if I don't buy snacks but just live on eggs, cheese, and the venison my son shoots for us. I truly can't afford drugs, so eating to minimize inflammation helps a lot.
And I'm not a total prude. Believe me, there will be some bourbon or sherry at this time of year and champagne at New Year's.
Good luck. It's really worth it. Just dont' think of dieting as a temporary fix. It's for the rest of your life (with the occasional slice of mince pie at Christmas!)
Congratulations! I abide by The Wheat Belly book and the advice it gives. Mainly a Paleo diet without sugars, low in carbs. Work out at the gym everyday. Yes, I have my aches and pains, but after beating my body for 62 years that is expected. See my earlier post here for my numbers. My family doc sure doesn’t make anything off of seeing me.