Diets may fail you, but these 10 nutritional strategies will ensure lifelong healthy habits.

“Are you happy?” is one of the first questions I ask my clients after working with them for the initial week. Not, “How much weight have you lost?” It may seem odd that I’m more concerned about them being happy than being thin, but what’s most important for me is that people learn to eat in a way that satisfies them. Basically, you have to be happy with the way you eat, or it’s like wearing a very fashionable yet itchy blouse: No matter how good it looks, you’ll eventually just take it off.

People use hundreds of ways to lose weight and then devise hundreds of reasons to throw those plans out the window, inevitably regaining the lost pounds. The keys to getting and keeping the body you want are time and consistency, and that means eating in a way you can live with rather than bouncing from diet to diet. I’ve condensed my nutrition philosophy and program into 10 core principles that are crucial for sound, healthful and realistic weight loss. If you’ve been struggling to lose weight, use these guidelines to stop the diet cycle and make food a pleasure in your life rather than a burden.

Bottom-line program:  10 steps to success

1. Eat According to Hunger.

As simple as this seems, most people who want to lose weight could do so by just eating when they’re hungry and stopping when they’re comfortable. For a variety of reasons, this is easier said than done.

Second, many of us are “emotional eaters,” turning to food when we’re bored, sad, mad — you name it.

Third, women trying to lose weight will often think of hunger as a good sign — that their body is burning bodyfat for fuel since they aren’t eating. Instead it’s just the opposite: When you’re starving you’re more likely to overeat later. Plus, consistently depriving your body of what it needs will make your body adapt to that lowered caloric intake. That means a lowered metabolic rate and a tendency to gain weight more quickly once you’re off the diet.

I recommend that my clients use a hunger scale to help them with their eating patterns and identify when they’re eating for emotional, rather than physical, reasons. I’ve included a sample hunger scale to get you started, below.

Basic hunger/satiety scale:
0 Starving and beyond.
1 You’re so hungry you want to order everything on the menu.
2 Everything on the menu begins to look good. You may be very preoccupied with your hunger.
3 You’re hungry, and the urge to eat is strong.
4 A little hungry. You can wait to eat, but you know you’ll be getting hungrier soon.
5 Neutral: not hungry, not full.
6 No longer hungry. You sense food in your belly, but you could definitely eat more.
7 Hunger is definitely gone. Stop here, and you may not feel hungry again for 3–4 hours.
8 Not uncomfortable, but you’ve definitely eaten a belly full.
9 Moving into uncomfortable.
10 “Thanksgiving full.” Very uncomfortable, maybe even painful.

Nutritionist Sheri Albert, MPH, RD, recommends staying between 3 and 7 most of the time. That is, try to eat before you’re so hungry that you can’t think straight, and stop eating when you feel satisfied and you’re no longer eating to satiate your hunger. Remember that anytime you eat more than your body needs at that time, you’ll store the excess calories as fat, whether it’s too many apples or too much Ben & Jerry’s.

2. Get to Know the Burning Theory.

There’s one truth about losing weight: You have to burn what you eat or you’ll store the extra fuel (food) as fat. To try to explain how your body uses various foods, I like to use the following anecdote of burning a wood fire.

a. Newspaper: These are foods your body burns quickly and efficiently, just like tossing a pile of papers on the fire. This category includes most vegetables and fruits (except avocado). An athlete would never rely on these foods before an event because they’d burn through them too quickly, but they should be a staple for those looking to lose weight.

b. Kindling: Like your basic twigs and wood fragments, foods that are high in protein, moderate to low in carbohydrates and low in fat burn less quickly than newspaper but still get a raging fire going. They include skinless poultry, shellfish and low-fat fish like orange roughy, sole, snapper and whitefish. Legumes (beans, peas and lentils) are also included here because they’re high in protein and fiber but low in fat.

d. Wet Logs: I think of fats that take your body a long time to burn as wet logs. The name says it all. Wet logs include oil, butter, ice cream, whole milk, cheese, nuts and seeds.

Basically, a healthy diet should consist of a log or two, some kindling and lots of newspaper. Throwing a wet log on top of these just slows the burning process down and can even eliminate it completely.

3. Avoid Flubber Foods.

I recommend eating natural foods that your body can use — none of that processed, chemical- and preservative-laden, artificially flavored junk (including junk that has “diet” on the label). Olestra potato chips, diet drinks, diet candy and fat-free cookies are all flubber foods that are no substitute for the real thing and probably won’t satisfy you anyway. Instead, make the healthy choice of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean meats, fish, and even a bit of sugar and fat. In Diet 911, I wrote to all those who ask me how to lose weight once and for all: “Listen to me! Get rid of your dietsodas, your highly processed fat-free cookies, your fat-free mayonnaise. If you want to achieve and maintain your optimal weight, you can’t be living on ‘diet’ foods.”

4. Keep the Fat in Your Diet Between 20–25 Grams Daily When Trying to Lose Bodyfat.

It’s simple: Fat has more than twice the calories per gram than protein or carbohydrate, which makes it too easy to rack up the calories. Plus, it’s already in a form easily converted into bodyfat, so your body doesn’t have to work very hard to pack it into your fat cells. I’m not saying to avoid fat completely, because a healthy eating plan doesn’t eliminate an entire food category. But if you want to lose weight, you do need to limit your daily fat intake to 20–25 grams (don’t go too low or you’ll miss out on some vital nutrients and end up craving fatty foods). I recommend not adding fat to what you cook, even olive or canola oils; avoiding mayonnaise, butter and margarine (even the fat-free kinds); and limiting nuts, seeds and avocados.

5. Drink Only in Moderation; Choose Wine or Light Beer.

Mixed drinks are high in calories, so limit them if you’re trying to lose fat. The American Heart Association recommends that women not consume more than one alcoholic drink per day.

6. Use Nonfat or Low-Fat Dairy Products.

Choose fat-free or 1% milk over whole milk. If you can’t make the switch to nonfat cheese, start with low-fat but pay attention to portion size.

7. Pay Attention to Cravings.

If you’re absolutely craving something, eating and enjoying a small amount of what you want is usually better than ignoring it or “eating around the craving.” First, check in with your body. Are you hungry? If not, are you upset, bored, anxious or stressed? Try to figure out if what you really need is food.

If you’re sure the craving is real, have a small amount and be sure to concentrate on each bite. It’s easy to mindlessly chew on popcorn, licorice, chocolate — whatever — and realize the craving’s still there because you weren’t even conscious of what you ate. I also recommend getting the smallest size available of your crave food to eliminate the possibility of overeating it.

Eating around the craving basically means that though you’re craving chocolate, you try an apple, some popcorn and a handful of crackers, only to discover you still want the chocolate. Only now you’ve eaten three times the calories you would have if you’d simply enjoyed a few Hershey’s Kisses.

8. You Eat It, You Burn It.

Try to match what you eat with your activity level. If you’ll be running around all day cleaning, walking and shopping, you’ll probably need to eat more than during a day spent sitting and napping.