Ratatouille weight-loss plan

"Here is the simple plan I devised. It has three points.

• Rule 1. No more more. No second helpings. I eat portions one might get in the sort of restaurant I used to shun. What is on the plate is what I eat.
  
  
• Rule 2. Ratatouille is key. There is no way to screw up ratatouille. Variations to taste are fine. If there's anything in the recipe I'm about to cite, you don't like, leave it out. Anything you like, that's a vegetable, you can add. This is how we make it:
  
  
  1. Chop garlic, 2 to 4 cloves or more, or less.
  2. Chop a couple onions.
  3. In a heavy-weight stock pot, pour a little olive oil and sautee the onions and garlic until clear.
  4. Add a couple of peeled eggplants, cut in chunks, 2 to 4 zucchinis, also in chunks, cover and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally.
  5. When the eggplant and zucchini get soft, add 2 to 4 tomatoes, (no need to peel), and mushrooms, (chunked), and some green peppers.
  6. A bay leaf, salt and pepper, and herbs and spices. (You can use ready-made combos like bouquet garni, or herbes de Provence, or Italian seasoning, maybe some jalapenos, or oregano, dill, basil, whatever is at hand, or you think might taste good--you can't ruin it).
  7. Cook covered a long time on low-to-medium heat, until it gets to the state of mushiness, or semi-mushiness you like. It's ready when you think it is. And it's better the next day, and the next, and the next.
  8. Serve hot, serve cold, (maybe with lemon juice), dump it on rice, make an egg-beater omelette with it, slurp it up with a spoon. I eat this stuff two or three times a day, and I will never get tired of it. It's jumping with vitamins, has negligible calories, and can just about sustain life on its own. The ratatouille fills out the portions I now eat, which seem skimpy to a man of my habits.
     (Aside from, and actually more importantly than, the weight-loss aspect...I feel incredibly strong and healthy. I imagine I can feel the micro-nutrients enter my bloodstream as I eat my portion of the delicious macedoine.)
  
  
• Rule 3. Don't eat anything stupid. Obviously, if one desires to lose weight, a chocolate eclair would be stupid. Anyone of average intelligence can figure out what's fattening, and what's not. I eliminate stuff that's fattening. If I should make a mistake, it doesn't matter, because I eat small portions, and no second helpings.

That's it. That's my whole plan. I don't weigh myself, try to get moderate exercise, and I don't worry. The weight is coming off. Your commentator has lost an estimated 50 pounds so far, anyway five or so inches around the middle.

Relating this has made me hungry--for ratatouille-- approximately my five-hundredth portion of the divine stuff since I devised my foolproof scheme."