Foods to eat to lose weight

One year, you're filling your pantry with only fat-free "goodies." The next, just juice and raw veggies, please. The year after that, you're eating like a caveman.

It seems we'll try anything and everything to lose weight. And often we learn the hard way that most fad diets fail. But a more recent approach, developed by dietitian and therapist Ellyn Satter, is promising to change the way people look at weight loss.

"Eating competence" — an alternative to those here-today-gone-tomorrow diets — is especially promising around the holidays because it's designed to make you feel good again about eating, allowing you to eat food you enjoy while teaching you to be more in tune with your body. According to research first published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, people who are competent eaters make healthier food choices and have healthier body weights and cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

These simple steps will get you started in the new year and, hopefully, change your outlook — and waistline — for good.

1 Crowd out less nutritious foods, but don't restrict them. Tell people they can't have pizza for five days and what do they crave? Pizza. On day six, what do they eat? Pizza. A lot of pizza. Numerous research studies have shown that for long-term weight loss success, restrictions don't work. Rather than taking away problem foods, add in more and more healthy ones. Serve a salad with your pizza. Next, add in some sautéed veggies. Tack on a beautiful fruit salad. Before long, the pizza is no longer a solo act.

2 Forget the numbers. Eating healthy shouldn't be a complicated mathematical equation. Rather than calculating total calories, grams of fat and all that, simply read a food item's list of ingredients. Look for a short list fewer than five ingredients is a good rule of thumb and be wary of anything that sounds like a chemical or that you wouldn't stock in your own pantry. If a food has ingredients that sound like real food, most likely it will be good for you, too. No calculator required.

3 Be mindful of your hunger cues. So often, we get in our own way. We eat because we're bored, sad or stressed, not necessarily because we're hungry. The first step in overcoming this tendency is to be mindful of your body's hunger—and fullness—cues every time you eat. Assess clearly what your body is telling you. Then eat enough to make you full and no more. It's amazing what your body will tell you if you simply take your time and pay attention.

4: Make mealtime a habit. Commit to making mealtime a regularly scheduled part of your day, and treat it like any other important appointment on your calendar. Our bodies perform best when they get food on a regular basis. If you skip lunch a few days or push dinner off until 9 p.m., your metabolism goes haywire.

5: Sit down for your snacks. We've all been there: It's 9 a.m. and you're starved because you only had time for a cereal bar for breakfast. Or it's 2 p.m. and the vending machine monster is calling your name. But the habit of grabbing and gobbling "whatever works" can add up. For a healthier approach, think about snacks as mini-meals. Include a healthy balance from at least two food groups, and actually take a minute to sit down and enjoy it.

6: Learn to like your veggies. If the words "Finish your veggies before you get dessert" still haunt you, it's time to make peace. People who don't love veggies tend to give up on them rather than making them flavorful by preparing them with infused olive oils, sea salt and different herbs. Try all those (no fancy recipes required), and be patient. It can take people several dozen times to learn to like a new food.

7: Eat food you enjoy, without the guilt. Do you love a chocolate croissant? How about a frosted brownie? Great news: You can still eat all of them. The goal here is to make the forbidden foods seem like ordinary foods, so you can eat them in ordinary ways (instead of hiding in the pantry and gobbling down eight cookies as fast as you can). About once or twice a week, enjoy your favorite treat as an afternoon snack. Or include a serving of dessert with your meal—it's even OK to eat it before you eat your veggies. Just make sure to savor the flavors and enjoy the experience, without the guilt. Make it normal and you won't need to binge.