Practically everything I eat comes out of a package these days. I'd prefer it wasn't like that, but it was the easiest way to measure calories when I was losing weight. You don't lose half your body weight by not making extreme sacrifices, despite what charlatans might tell you in an effort to sell you something.

After I hit my lowest weight I decided to ease up on the extreme calorie counting and shift my efforts towards eating simple home cooked meals since they'd be less expensive and, if you believe the common wisdom, healthier. Consequently, I put on about 30 pounds. This was mostly eating tofu, eggs, potatoes, fruit, mushrooms, various vegetables, cheese, and homemade bread (usually whole grain).

So I went back to what worked. One other thing eating packaged foods did was give me a bunch of time back. I'm still about 10 pounds up from that experiment.