I highly respect anyone here, and following whatever works. But
I have an ALT- monk-mode process that prevents me from counting
carbs.

--- im curious if anyone else here has basically slightly modified
this process to eating 10
or so foods over and over.

I lost 40 pounds once doing it that way, but not sure this time around. In any event
I dont want to eat a lot of meat. And for me anyway, some foods were off limits, but I lost anyway.

Granted, I probably just overall ate about half the food i usually do
because it was boring:

meat/ fish/ sweet potato, black beans, blackberries, spinach, etc.

.....and basically these 10 foods are the only thing you keep in the house.

---Also, these 10 foods require almost no prep. You do pre-emptive
strike eating before youre craving. Its horribly boring but it worked for
me previously.

Im just to lazy to follow the exact regimen of counting carbs.

Funny thing, I ate nothing but meat, high fat dairy, and guacamole for a month, and it was never boring. I ate a lot of it, too.

It was also nutritionally complete. Those 10 things sound fairly nutritious. Sweet potato and black beans are high in carbs, so I wouldn't be indulging in those, especially not the beans, which have a lot of lectins, which upsets my stomach.

If boredom keeps you from eating, "eating as amusement" might be part of your problem? Find a new hobby?

Remember the black bean trend that started back when they were also pushing us humans to eat the rice with hulls (aka livestock feed)?
I saw an an interview with a Cuban immigrant and he said that if he never saw another black bean the rest of his life he would be happy because in communist Cuba they couldn't get meat so survived on black beans and rice. He in fact said if they took a lobster out of the ocean to eat they would be thrown in jail for something like 10 years.

What the vegans have in store for us all!

I like the label "Monk Mode" to identify a diet that's limited to a certain number and type of foods. Gruel, anyone?

I've read that almost everyone, no matter what they eat, eats the same stuff over and over day after day. For some people, that would be burgers and fries (chips). Or frozen pizza. Or anything they buy in a box that goes in the microwave.

A limited menu can actually be a good strategy for getting going on a low-carb routine. If boring food works for you, great. You simply pick the right low-carb foods. For years and years, DH and I have eaten flaxseed muffins every single day for breakfast: fiber, fat, protein, a minute in the microwave.

For me, committing to low-carbness is an opportunity to cook more creatively, and I like that. But stocking the freezer with a selection of meats (mince, poultry, fish) and veggies is the solution to "What's for dinner?" most of the time. Plain. Boring. Easy. Nothing to count.

Bulk cook and freeze for your own "frozen dinners" works well, too.

I'm not one who requires a lot of variety in my life - in fact too much variety stresses me out. Even when I was high carb, I'll bet most months I only at 10 foods or fewer. Of course, one of those foods would be bread, which probably has more than 10 ingredients in it. Fortunately for me, my husband is the same way. I think it's genetic because our adopted kids eat a much more varied diet than our biological kids.

That describes breakfast for me - I'm not a great cook in the morning! In my pre-LC days, it was oatmeal every morning, now I've settled on 1 egg & a small serving of a LC veggie, which depends on what was leftover or what's in the fridge.

The other meals are all pretty similar, but I rotate ingredients. Husband doesn't like eggs as much as I do, so I have to disguise them a bit. I've found some really good LC egg recipes that he likes & I love.