For several years, I was an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Now, I'm not a full-time vegetarian, but I do consume more non-meat meals than most. I enjoy eating at some of the Vegan restaurants in the area, and when I am outside of the USA, I avoid all meats, though I do eat eggs and cheese.
I think the biggest problem when one is converting from a traditional "American" style meal to vegetarian is that we tend to still look for the one *main dish* with supporting vegetables. That kind of thinking leads to overconsumption of milk and/or egg products if you're still eating those. I think a much better approach is to make sure that each meal includes a variety of small servings instead. Vary the textures and colors and you'll automatically be including most if not all of the essential nutrients at each meal. The Japanese recommend 5 colors at each meal, and it can be fun trying to plan your menu around a visually pleasing presentation as well as taste.
Today's news presented new diet recommendations which I think are still not agressive enough. They said to eat less animal-based foods and more vegetables. 1.5 cups of fresh fruit weekly. Oatmeal once per week. Reduce alcohol intake to less than 1 glass of wine per day. No saturated fats or trans fats. I've looked for an online source of what was mentioned on the morning news, but I can't find it right now. I like the UK Government's promotion of 5-a-day (
http://www.5aday.nhs.uk/ ) which seems to have been picked up by the CDC in the USA (
http://www.5aday.gov/ ).