1. Eat as many veggies as you can.
Never limit your vegetables. Veggies have so few calories and are so ripe in nutrients and fiber that you should eat them at every meal, every day. Picture this: three giant dinner plates filled with 1 cup of broccoli, 1 cup of cauliflower, 1 cup of baby carrots, 1 cup of yellow squash, 1 cup of cucumbers, 1 cup of spinach, 1 cup of red peppers, 1 cup of tomatoes and one portobello mushroom … this heaping slab of vegetables has about 200 calories! Yet you could probably not eat all of it at one sitting—you’d be too full.

But you could easily drink one super-sized soda and take in almost three times as many calories, or eat a small cheeseburger and take in 400 calories. Add fries and a shake and you’d eat about five times as many calories as you’d get from that veggie smorgasbord . Get the picture? If you need to feel full when you eat, the key is to fill up with good stuff.

If you don’t find most vegetables appetizing, find some that you like. Or disguise them. Sprinkle grated cheese, olive oil, Tabasco, tomato sauce or pesto sauce on them. Even if you add a couple of hundred calories worth of a topping, you’ll still eat fewer calories in total than you would if you had a fast-food or processed-food item.

Throw extra veggies into everything you make at home: sandwiches, eggs, casseroles, burgers, pizza, soups, frozen dinners, pasta. If you eat out, always order vegetable side dishes or veggie toppings on pastas, pizza, sandwiches and burgers.

2. Drink no cal or low cal.
Liquid calories don’t seem to register as extra caloric intake in the body. As a result, your body doesn’t dial down how much you eat later, you simply store the extra calories from that soda as fat. So cultivate a taste for water to soothe your palate. Or unsweetened tea. Or add a splash of juice to a glass of water. If you knock out the sodas, juices, energy drinks, smoothies, beer, wine and coffee concoctions, you can save hundreds, even thousands, of calories every single day. Depending on how much you drink, if you simply switched to no-cal drinks, you could drop pounds in a matter of months.

3. Eat more fruit.
Several fad diets spread the nasty rumor that fruit is fattening. It’s not and you should eat as much of it as possible. Sure, any food calories add up. But find one person who got fat from eating too many oranges, bananas and watermelon. People get fat from eating too much fried food, fast food, sugar drinks and processed items. Eat fruit every day, every snack, every meal if you can. Eat it in place of a sweet snack, or halve your dessert and include fruit.

4. Eat more good fats.
Certain items like avocados, nuts and olives have a reputation for being fattening and so many people avoid them. Not a good idea. These contain fats that your body needs.

• Munch on nuts every day. Eight walnut halves, about a handful, have around 100 calories and lots of fiber. One candy bar has over 200.
• Snack on olives. Ten black olives have about 50 calories. One small order of fries has about 300. The olives have fewer calories but are mostly healthy unsaturated fat. The fries have more calories and are high in bad, saturated fat.
• Add avocados to dishes. Spread guacamole instead of butter on a piece of whole-grain toast: Yum! A half an avocado has 150 calories—and healthy unsaturated fat along with vitamins and minerals. Add an avocado to a tomato and basil salad along with a splash of olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and your dish is less than 200 calories. Compare that to a classic Cobb salad, which can be more than 600 calories and high in saturated fat.

5. Never skip breakfast.
Many overweight people eat late at night then wake up not hungry and skip breakfast. This is a recipe for overeating. If you fuel your body with small portions of food at regular intervals, you are less likely to get cravings and binge. Plus you are more likely to have less body fat since dramatic fluctuations in energy intake encourage your body to store more fat.

If you make these long-term lifestyle changes, which will improve rather than drastically alter the way you eat, you’ll feel better, get healthier and slim down.