With about ten thousand different diets out there, how do you wade through all of the information and find a way of eating that is not only healthy but affordable? 

• First of all you have to look within and find out what your health education level is.  Do you know what is in the foods that you are eating?  Do you know whether the foods you are eating are good for you?
• Second you have to decide how willing you are to change.  Considering the fact that you are sitting here reading this page has to indicate some willingness to change, but how much?
• Next you have to be able to identify the foods in your diet that need to change and if you can't, record everything you eat for the next 3-5 days and send it to me, I will help you.
• After that you have to work at replacing the bad foods with good foods.  You don't just cut out the bad, you find a replacement that is better than what you were eating previously.  And you don't cut them out all at once either... that is unless you want this lifestyle change to fail along with all of the other diets that fail out there.  Your change needs to be slow.  Change one thing at a time.
• Next you need to learn to recognize ingredients that are put into processed foods that make the foods cheaper for them to process, cheaper for you to buy, but at the expense of your body.  Things like partially hydrogenated soybean oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil, and high fructose corn syrup for example.  (Start looking at the ingredients of the foods you are eating... you'll see these things in most of the processed foods that you buy)
• You begin to change things like Doritos out for baked pita chips or soy crips.  You switch from fruit juice sweetened with corn syrup to 100% fruit juice.  You avoid the sausage, egg, and cheese croissant, and go for the ham, egg, and cheese on an english muffin to start.  These small changes don't entirely rock your dieting world and allow you to start making baby steps towards a healthier lifestyle.