1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
I’m well practiced at this and enjoy soup or salad or both at lunch and dinner and usually an apple before breakfast.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.
I really find the 50-50 plate so helpful and easy to do. I’ve been focusing more on making my starches wet ones or steamy ones. For example, using a baked potato or steamed potatoes instead of air fried potatoes.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
I don’t cook with salt at all or add it, preferring to use a variety of spices instead. Sugars are a little more challenging as they seem to be in everything from ketchup to pickles. But I purposely don’t cook with it or add it to the foods I prepare.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
I have successfully eliminated all animal products for five years now.
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
I was able to adhere to this guideline this week. But find myself wanting to add Chia seed to my oatmeal and to make a tofu scramble. I will continue to avoid in order to lose more weight however.
6. Eliminate any added oil.
I have so enjoyed adhering to this guideline over the past couple of years. There are so many advantages to not cooking with oil: the no oil dressings are delicious, cleaning pots and pans is simple now, food taste so much better without oil. This is one of the best things about eating this way.
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
oops, this is the one I did not adhere to this week. I had some leftover raisins which I put on oatmeal one day, and I had the oyster crackers that came with a bowl of veggie soup one day. It was a automatic response not thinking about it and just doing it and then realizing later that I had slipped up. I will try to remember about the dried fruit especially and the crackers to going forward.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
I had 8 ounces of fresh squeezed orange juice straight from the oranges one morning with my oatmeal. So, I’m not sure if that is a slip up or not. But I understand that eating the orange would be a better option.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
I did stuff myself one evening and realized I was eating mindlessly. Having had a very stressful day with taking my pet to the emergency room. It was distracted eating seeking comfort and something I realized later was a trigger for me.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
currently training for a 10k, so getting in exercise was easy this week.
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
This is my first week back after a couple of years of not being on the forum. So, I realize some of my good behaviors have slipped. For example adding nuts, seeds, dried fruit to oatmeal on a regular basis in the past. However, I particularly enjoyed cleaning my environment this week and filled two grocery bags of things that had creeped back into my household. Since the last time I was on the forum I haven’t gained weight but I haven’t lost much. So, taking these guidelines seriously is what I am hoping will push me off the plateau and get me losing weight again, being about 20 pounds from the perfect BMI.
I did this for every meal this week but maybe not when I needed a potato to keep my snacking at bay 
Enjoy your pumpkin soup; it sounds tasty!
I think it is SUPER helpful to frame your efforts, as you describe doing, as "acting like" or "becoming" someone who adheres to the recommended pattern of behavior. Great idea! Big kudos to you for resisting those powerful, situational cravings at the grocery store. 
