Bento Attitude

http://shizuokagourmet.com/bentoboxed-lunches/

This site has a great set of pages showing the bento lunches of the author. It is not the cute factor with these but the practical approach to eating well and balanced meals while being very tasty. The various ways of enjoying rice and making so many variations works well.  Changing habits and the typical "diet" concept usually leaves you lacking variety of flavors and or feeling satisfied. The Bento as an example is a great way to approach things, western lunches tend to be one item and some chips etc. While with the Bento and other asian meals you find a great diverseness to the palate. It may be an art form at times the basic lessons we can take from it are what I am looking for.  Non processed foods, variety, vegetables over meats, multiple protein sources, balance.

Another observation to take is "dessert".. a small piece of cheese and fruit or a portion of a sweet omelet. Desert does not have to be sugar and just because it is not sugar does not mean we can not call it dessert. The psychology of making these changes is as important to the physical changes. These are ingrained habits of years or of a life time that we are talking about changing. Mental happiness is part of this process and adjusting what we think of dessert being can be a big help.