Dietary choices

Granted the word "Diet" has been misinterpreted and has been attached to a negative connotation for some time people associate it with bland flavorless food that makes them want to jump ship and eat Twinkies,  I have found that shifting my food choices to that of the Paleo lifestyle rather than a diet has given a huge return.
http://thepaleodiet.com
The paleo diet is our hunter/gatherer diet, us as humans have spent thousands if not millions of years adapting to this way of eating and a mere 10 thousand years adapting to the agricultural ways we currently live in. Lean meats 2-3 times a week, fresh seasonal fruits and veggies nuts and tubers make up the most of this diet, the great thing is you can eat essentially as much as you need to in order to feel satisfied, for the snacks I use nuts to tie me over.

But I did not start there, I first went with the South beach diet, and that helped a great deal in the first phase you cut out all carbs and processed foods this went a long way to helping with the sugar cravings and headaches associated with it
http://www.southbeachdiet.com
This diet allowed me to first cut the sugar cravings I had from 5-6 cans of monster a day, all the breads and chips I had been eating etc, I found phase one to be the most difficult phase but well worth two weeks of suffering to make the transition to paleo that much easier. besides we have spent our whole lives making our bodies what they are, it is not going to be easy to get back to what you have in mind.
Making the choice to eat better foods it sure helped having the South Beach Diet book handy to let me know what I could eat etc, for example you wouldn't really expect a carrot to thwart your weight loss attempts but in the first phase you cut out ALL sugars including the healthier natural sugars, even the natural sugars spike your insulin levels and keep you playing the game longer. so first cutting all sugars and carbs from your diet is the best choice it also returns the highest rate of weight loss.
surfing the internet for any and all recipes you can eat brings a lot of healthy choices and meals that are very satisfying. I found the Moroccan Chicken  recipe previously posted to be excellent and bursting with flavor.

In general snacking is ok, simply because if you let yourself go hungry you will deviate from your new restrictions. Raw almonds not only help keep you feeling sated longer but also have huge health benefits in way of the amount of potassium and magnesium they contain, in short its like draino for your veins, helps keep your veins clean and heart healthy.
Celery sticks are also great for snacking on, giving you the CRUNCH some people desire. you can eat celery sticks with almond butter, or natural no sugar added peanut butter.

Juicing is another thing I started doing once I got going on my weight loss program...  not really a program other than I started caring about myself and what I was feeding my machine with.  but juicing allows a person to cram a lot more vegetables into their diet thus increasing the sheer amounts of micro nutrients they are consuming.

On top of eating properly staying hydrated with water is just as crucial, as you start eating healthier foods the build up of toxins in your system will start dumping themselves out through your digestive system, also eliminating a lot of fluids from you body.

Lastly Rest, these days our world is connected 24 hours a day 7 days a week and our bodies get less and less of the quality sleep we require, getting proper rest has so many benefits that would have to be a post on its on, in short it improves your brain function, allows your body to heal itself and also allows you to take a needed break from the go go go world we enjoy so much.
Changing a diet, and increasing your activity are essentially 80% of your weight loss tasks, that alone will allow you to start feeling better and when you feel better you look better.

I have gotten a lot of my resources to accomplish my goals from reading posts from Steve Kamb on his site, nerdfitness.com, he has done a lot of research and although he is not a dietician or a doctor of any sort either, the information can be checked and double checked if you choose. 
I hope this information is useful to anyone reading it and again feel free to comment, suggestions are always accepted and I would really like to hear from anyone that this might be helping achieve their goals have a great week, will post more by Thursday next week. do something, anything :)