Vegetarian meals 3 or 4 days a week, fish two days, and lean chicken one or two days would, in my opinion, be a healthy alternative to a strictly vegetarian diet. I think we were meant to be herbivores because of the way our teeth and claws are shaped. Restricting beef and pork to once or twice a month is also a good idea.
I am definitely in agreement with cutting out sugar, but the paradox for me is that I love the way carbohydrates taste. Just the avoidance of processed carbohydrates has huge health benefits. My mother-in-law was diabetic. I bought her a copy of "The Sugarbuster's Diet". It promotes the elimination of high-glycemic foods from the diet. It is much like the "South Beach" diet. The difference is that the first book bases it's glycemic index on sugar, and "South Beach" bases theirs on white flour. The glycemic index assigns a number to a particular food based on it's ability to peak blood sugar levels, with white flour or sugar having the most serious impact. Anyway, when she followed the principles of the diet, her doctor was thrilled with the impact that it had on her health. She lost weight and many of her lab values came within normal limits. She had been relying on insulin to control her blood sugar, but while she was on this diet, she didn't need her insulin. Sadly, she went off the diet and everything went back to the way it had been. She found the diet to be too restrictive. She loved her processed carbs.