That's commendable. It's "simple" as in not complicated and easy to understand. It's "difficult" as in it requires an incredible amount of discipline, and potentially time, compared to the alternative.
I believe that time and energy are what many Americans are running in too short of supply on to transition to more wholesome diets. Most have so much on their plates to deal with already that the idea of thinking about additional things they technically don't have to is unappealing, even if it's at the cost of their own health. It's why ultraprocessed foods became so common in the first place.
It's just another microcosm of a culture that's obsessed with productivity and has little resembling proper work-life balance.
Agreed.. A thought pattern I've tried to adopt is "Best time to fix your health is today rather than when you've had a heart attack or diagnosed with type-2 diabetes"
Too many people are getting health related diseases (because of diet/exercise)
Maybe at the beginning of this lifestyle it was somewhat difficult and there was some fight inside me (hard not to buy sweets at the store counter etc) but it fairly quickly turned into subconscious, almost mechanical way of doing things.
It's similar to addiction detox: when I ditched smoking (after 20+ years), it was hard at the beginning, there was this feeling of lacking something "important" but it diminished over time. There's no way I'd even consider smoking a cigarette or eating sugary and fatty sweets after few years. I stopped being compatible with those things.
We are in the 1960s smoking phase of bad diets. It is hard to escape terrible junk foods at just about any place that serves anything edible.
You can easily double or triple your food costs if you're getting most of your calories from organic veggies and non-grain-fed animals.