My poor eating habits must stop! Looking for healthy, nutritious alternatives

How many of you are familiar with this picture?



Like most of you on here, I was taught this back in grade school—the food pyramid guide. It shows you what kinds of food you should eat and in what proportions to maintain a healthy diet. Add that in with a normal exercise routine and you should be pretty much set for life, almost.

To be honest, my eating habits suck. And like most people, I wasn't concerned in the slightest, as long as my food tasted good, everything was A'ok with me. But, let's face reality here, if I keep going on eating the way I do (let's see what I had to eat today double bacon cheeseburger, lots of french fries, soda, a couple chicken burritos, ice cream, etc) I'm going to run into problems, sooner or later. There are a lot of serious health problems that can occur from not having a health diet and all that jazz.

So, I'm trying to find out ways that I can improve my diet, starting with the foods I eat. Probably the reason I eat the way I do is because it's fast and cheap, and I don't have to spend hours prepping and cooking food just to spend 10 or 15 minutes eating it. In order to phase out all the junk I eat, I'll have to replace it with good food. I'm not that much of a vegetable or greens person, but I guess I'll have to bite the bullet on this one and force food down my throat in order to keep healthy.

I'll try to follow the food pyramid guide as much as possible, I guess I gotta read the labels now, but I could use some help from those of you who can cook or know how to make nutritious meals, hopefully meals that are quick to make (but I can spend extra time to prep and cook food, better spending extra time doing that than getting Diabetes and spending time shooting up my arm with insulin, right?) and won't break the bank. Any ideas on what I could make to fill out this food pyramid on a regular basis? I don't care if I have to get into a boring, "not this food again" routine, as long as I start eating healthy and keep it that way. I'll try searching online for recipes and topics on nutrition and all that tomorrow.

On another note, staying up late you get to see a lot of informercials on TV, but irregular and bad sleeping patterns is a whole other can of worms. I've seen different exercise and makeover programs, I think one of them is called like the Michael Thurmond body makeover system, I don't know, but that's not the point. I remember seeing him have a guide or recipe list that shows you what meals you can eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to have a well-rounded, healthy diet. If any of you have anything like that or suggestions on food I could make for those 3 meal times, that would be super as well. Anyway, thanks for listening and for any help, advice you can give me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.