take all this with a grain of salt

if you don’t need to lose weight immediately for health reasons, focus less on weight loss and more on making healthy habits feel natural

regarding eating, i’d say the following are essential:

• avoid getting hungry
• food should be as tasty as possible. you have to actually like what you’re eating
• no forbidden food. do not try to take anything away from your diet
• absolutely NO strict rules in general. they’re bad enough for neurotypicals, so they’re fatal to us
• introduce healthy food you like. if you can, start with fruits, lots of fruits. fruits are the easiest kind of tasty healthy food
• try to eat on time as much as possible. kind of a corollary of “avoid getting hungry”
• have go-to foods you can eat at each meal/whenever you get hungry without thinking. one of mine is strawberry smoothie
• don’t eat anything you don’t like. it doesn’t matter how healthy it is, if you hate it, it’s bad for you. there’s plenty of healthy food out there
• give a chance to foods you don’t like too much once in a while. maybe you’ll end up liking them eventually, maybe not. just try and you’ll find out
• above all else, make any of these changes incrementally. the point is building solid habits, not having a solid diet from the get go

any of these follow from: eating is one of the most important things in our life; never make yourself feel bad while trying to get healthy.

good luck

Have a calorie tracking app and track everything. You will start to learn how somethings are more calorie dense than others. Don’t have junk food. You will want to snack. Have veggies like carrots or fresh fruit on hand. Drink water first. So many times I “feel” hungry but I am actually thirsty. Load up on broccoli. If you over eat, then have lots of broccoli. It’s filling and not calorie dense. When possible plan your meals ahead of time. It’s brutally hard to make the better diet choice when your hungry. It’s easier to just follow through with a decision you already made.