Hi Louise
I am vegetarian and I eat exactly the same things on fast days and aim to do as little cooking as possible. . I have 2 snack meals on diet days and my evening meal on fast days is an enormous salad with a vegan burger (no bun): in the salad there are 210g iceberg lettuce, 1 tomato, 2 BIG gherkins or 4 smaller ones and vinaigrette made with 33 per cent water. I make my own burgers – tofu and tvp and bean burgers but occasionally I buy bean burgers from Iceland.
On non-diet days I eat curry, chilli, ratatouille or goulash with a minimum amount of potato, rice or pasta and again I have 2 healthy snack meals.
I always eat at mid-day, 4pm and 8pm.
The diet works best for me if I don’t go for much variety, so that attention is not drawn to food. But I do enjoy all the snacks and meals. I have been doing this for about a year now and am close to my goal weight.

And Good Luck to you, Louise. Once you’ve done the diet for a couple of weeks, it becomes a habit and much easier. The reason I still enjoy my food and don’t get bored with it is that your body feels hungry even when you are not conscious of it,so the same old treats still do the trick.
If you have a busy life, that will work in your favour. You don’t have time to think about food. Keep a couple of bottles of water in strategic places and have a good drink the moment you become conscious of the need for food.

Hi DT
Though it may not be apparent from my previous posts, I like cooking too. But that can be a problem. New cook books = more temptation. And I can resist anything except temptation.
My preference would be to avoid all packaged food. Here in Spain there is a fantastic selection of good natural food and I take full advantage of that. Like you I sometimes am surprised at the calories hidden in food but this is more of a problem if you buy pre-packaged. So till I get just a little below my goal weight, I will always try to avoid the tempting “products” in the supermarket.