I have found success in using an "education phase" for those beginning nutritional lifestyle changes who are completely ignorant of food. So, for a temporary period, we focus less on scale weight and body composition, and more on learning what foods have not been processed into "not-foods" and which are more natural. I s*** you not, some folks believe that chicken nuggets are part of the bird.
We also focus on what these foods contain: how many grams of each macronutrient are in whatever food; what the grams per macronutrient actually look like on the plate; and what a days worth of this looks like in the context of a multi-day food journal.
While we are doing this, the brain and body are detoxing from sugar and processed gunk, both of which are screwing up natural hunger signals. If they stay the course for a month, their internal hunger signals will be more accurate to follow and they will have learned enough about food to quit the numbers game, and just eat. Note that your body relearns tastes for food and detoxes from crap for years after these changes, so the "two week" induction that most gurus speak of is really the tip if the iceberg. You have to continue to learn and pay attention to your body for years after. And this all depends upon how toxic and addicted you were in the first place. If your momma loved crap while she was carrying you and you were diabetic as an infant (a very novel scenario), you'll have a much longer reboot period before you can "just follow your hunger".
After this, it depends upon your goals; but generally: eat enough protein so that your body doesn't eat itself; eat enough starch so that you can maintain anaerobic energy; and eat the rest of your energy requirements in good fat. So, a sedentary eating plan of leaner meat and veggies (no fruit) would differ from training for the SFG: fattier meats and veggies, fruit, starches, etc. Both will find lean body comps; the latter will be able to fuel training.
Moreover, whomever you are, in my opinion, you need get "fat adapted", or, what is known as having sharp "metabolic flexibility": humming along on fat most of the time, to include up to a decently high level of intensity of training, and using sugar pathways to fuel only the most intense activity.
