For most of us, eating a wholesome diet means making 5 basic changes.

• Eat less fat
• Eat less sugar
• Eat more fiber
• Eat more fruit and vegetables
• Avoid hunger by filling up with good food

1. Eat less fat
Fat contains more than twice the calories of other nutrients. A typical Australian diet contains more than 90 grams of fat per day. To put this into perspective, if you want to lose weight, you need no more than about 30 grams of fat per day. To achieve this, you must switch to low-fat options whenever possible, and get used to reading food labels.

Suggestions:

• Switch to low-fat dairy products
• Eat less red meat (beef, lamb, pork) -two to three times a week is enough
• Switch to fish, chicken, lean pork and beef
• Avoid high-fat foods like pastries, cream, butter, mayonnaise, chocolate and biscuits.

2. Eat less sugar
Processed sugar is (kilo for kilo) relatively high in calories. In addition, it's almost valueless as a food. It provides virtually no nutrients. You should moderate your intake. Fortunately, although half the sugar we consume is added to food by the manufacturers, the other half is self-administered so it's under your control.

Suggestions:

• Reduce the amount of sugar you add to your tea and coffee
• Don't add sugar to your cereal and avoid sugary cereals or muesli
• Eat tinned fruit packed in natural juice, not syrup
• Avoid soft drinks with calories
• Avoid treats like biscuits, lollies and cakes

Remember, sensible eating doesn't mean avoiding 'sweet things'. It just means choosing sweet things that don't give us fat thighs.

3. Eat more fibre
Kilo for kilo, fibre contains far fewer calories than fat or sugar so it's a great slimming food. It also fills us up, so you feel satisfied. Fibre also helps to protect against a number of digestive complaints like constipation and diverticular disease, as well as diabetes and gall-stones.

Higher fibre, starchy foods include wholemeal bread, potatoes, wholemeal pasta, brown rice, beans, peas, leafy green vegetables, sweet-corn, pulses, bran-based cereals, oat bran.

4. Eat more fruit and vegetables
Ideally, eat 2-3 servings of fruit every day. For example, here are 4 painless ways to eat more fruit.

• Juice it! Do it by hand or buy a juicer
• Add it to cereal and make leftovers into fruit salad
• Open a can of tinned fruit (in juice, not syrup) every day!
• Enjoy lots of stewed fruit desserts

Ideally, eat 3-4 servings of vegetables every day. For example, here are 4 painless ways to eat more vegies.

• Make home-made soup!
• Cook casseroles! The flavor of the meat makes the vegetables taste great!
• Start stir-frying! And instead of using fat, use lemon juice, soy sauce, chilli sauce etc
• Eat more salad! Include tomatoes, cucumber, corn, beetroot, celery, carrot and cabbage

5. Avoid hunger
Hunger is easily the biggest diet-killer because hunger makes us miserable. 
Result? We give up our weight loss plans and go back to the biscuits. Unfortunately, most slimmers still think that losing weight means eating small portions - that's why most of them give up dieting and stay overweight.

Suggestions:

• When making sandwiches, use sliced tomato or cucumber instead of margarine. It's a great way to reduce your calorie-intake.