This is crucial to losing weight and something I overlooked for a long time:
Choose 1-2 veg you like raw and also a dried fruit you like. Keep the veg cut up and ready right in the front of the refrig so you see them all the time. Dried fruit in front too. Each in a nice little tupperware container or such. This may seem silly (keeping these in front and in a handsome container) but it works. I like celery and dried apricots.
Cut meal portions to 2/3 normal portions then at the end of meal (more so) eat the raw veg.
This does some great things:
1) Fills you up and you're satisfied plus you get to (mostly) eat what you always did
2) Cuts calories big time over time
3) Puts roughage after the food in the digestive track.
4) You're eating veg (which you must) without dressings
Snacking: Instead of going and slicing a slice of cheese
have dried fruit or raw veg once in a while. Not everytime but once in a while will make a big diff over time.
Also as said, avoid wheat bread except "100% whole wheat" which otoh is excellent. Also avoid eating the simple carbs of course.
Someone really overweight has to get raw veg in their diet and chances are they were not getting them before unless they were full of (soybean oil) dressing too.
It isn't so much what raw veg brings to the table, but rather what raw veg keeps you from bringing to the table. When your eating raw veg your not eating AS MUCH of something else and you are not going hungry.
Here's to that stalk of tasty fresh celery. Full of low calorie roughage and beneficial chlorophyll
