Thanks for the kudo mrdave100. I guess proper, for me, means controlling my food consumption. I don't follow any particular diet approach such as macro percentages or certain foods although I do have foods I eat more often than others.
DDH, the following is my best explanation of my current eating practices - a.k.a. "diet".
The wisdom of Jeff Cavaliere has had a huge impact on my eating practices, particularly his "food is fuel" mantra. I get my highs elsewhere and not from food like I have done when I wasn't on task like I am now.
I practice intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating, call it what you want and generally follow an 18-hour fasting period and 6-hour feeding period although I'm flexible because I can afford to be. Last Good Friday, for example, I fasted 23 hours and my feeding window was a mere 47 minutes during which time I ate about 2,100 calories.
What I've learned is that I'm a volume eater; I like big meals less frequently eaten than a bunch of small meals. I could never do that 5 to 6 meals a day thing. I like the OMAD approach and did it every day during Lent 2019 with a 22-hour fasting period and 2-hour feeding period. I really like it but it's anti-social. It would be easier to do as a lifestyle if I was a one-man band.
I like exercising in a fasted state.
I generally eat at maintenance level (about 2,000 calories plus any exercise calories earned) to neither gain or lose weight because I'm where I want to be which doesn't fluctuate much from day to day. For example, if I go on a 60-minute run, I'll burn about 700 to 750 calories so on a day like that, my maintenance would be 2,700 to 2,750 calories. By way of comparison, on Easter Sunday, I ate 3,393 calories. I seldom go over 3,000 calories a day.
I weight myself every morning after taking a piss, same Bat time, same Bat channel because I'm an analytical guy and believe measuring and monitoring is how I best stay on task.
In a perfect world, my feeding window would be 9:00 am to 3:00 pm but I'm more typically 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm. I don't drink any calories, only black coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day. Exception is during summer months when taking a long run, I'll add a package of electrolyte mix (Costco) to a tall glass of water and believe this is 50 calories.
This way is easier for me because I'm still in the rat race working. If I was a retired person and that day is soon approaching, it will be harder as it is on days when I'm home.
These are foods I tend to eat often:
(1) Organic steel-cut oatmeal
(2) Eggs
(3) Organic European-style full fat plain yogurt, to which I'll add a heaping tablespoon of organic flax meal and a scoop of whey protein
(4) Organic hamburger, BBQ baby back ribs (about once a month), organic chicken breasts, bacon
(5) Organic mixed greens, cherry tomatoes and English cucumber in a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar
(6) Yukon Gold potatoes, boiled and preferred to eat cold, sometimes four at a time if it's a meal replacement such as at work
(7) Rice
(8) Organic corn
(9) Beans once in a while, preferring pinto and black bean
(10) Pasta
I can easily eat the same foods over and over.
I don't currently take any supplements aside from using whey protein once in a while and the electrolyte mix mentioned above during the summer after a long run.
I don't drink alcohol beverages at the moment and haven't since I returned to Pierini Fitness boot camp on August 31, 2018. If I were to have a drink, and I might do that this summer, it would be a cold bottle of Corona beer.
I try to avoid cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, ice cream, crackers and chips -
My seven forbidden C foods - because of my lifetime inability to eat them in moderation. I did, however, eat dessert my wife made yesterday of coffee-flavored ice cream topped with whipped cream and Oreo cookies. I try to avoid pizza for the same reason. I've also told myself I know of no good reason to eat a doughnut for the rest of my life. That type of food is crack-cocaine addicting to me.
I've set my ideal weight as a range which currently is 170-175 lbs. and monitor it daily like a hawk because this is what works for me. If I was a professional boxer, I could make weight in 2-days notice 100 percent of the time.
Note that as I told a fellow middle-aged man client recently who shared how he wanted to lose 15 lbs. that doing so as I didn't make me any better of a person; I'm still the turd I am, but I do enjoy the feeling of pulling my pants up rather than the drudgery of hardly waiting to get home to peel off the tight pants that I continued wearing because I didn't want to invest in a new fat man wardrobe.
Hope this helps, wishing you the best.