frenchfryqueen, in response to your question I just sat here well past midnight (!) and wrote a 2000 word essay (!!) on my diet, which probably wouldn't be that helpful, and who would want to read it! I cut and pasted it into a document, and maybe after I sleep on it I'll be able to cut it down some, or maybe I'll start a personal diary and refer people there who might be interested. To summarize, what works for me is shopping mostly around the edge of the store, getting whole, unprocessed food as much as possible, substituting green things for most of what's white on your plate, and basically using whatever recipe you like but leaving out the stuff that makes it not fit your diet. Leave out all the sugar and the refined flour. A little whole grain is all the starchy carbs anyone needs. The rest is all about portion control. There's a lot of conflicting information but mostly it boils down to what some famous nutrition expert (whose name I can't remember) said about food: Eat some, but not too much, and eat mostly vegetables. That's a rough paraphrase. Maybe someone else can come up with the exact quote.
It seems very hard when you first try to cut out carbs because we all love them, but when you do, and especially when you start to feel better and you lose a little weight (if you need to), you will wonder what was so hard. It took me 30 years of resisting these better habits before I finally got the motivation. Best wishes!