Food is your body’s fuel. You can’t live without it. The key is to give your body enough nutrients and energy without eating too much. Learn new eating habits to manage your weight.

Calories are a measure of the energy you get from food. If you eat more calories than you use, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than you use, you will lose weight.

The majority of dieters regain the weight they lose within five years. But they could avoid doing so by gradually changing their eating and exercise habits. Your approach to weight loss should be to make changes you can keep up for the rest of your life.

Experts say the long-term success at weight loss requires a balance between diet and physical activity.

Most medical weight-loss programs first try to help you make the long-term behavioral changes necessary to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. This includes exercising regularly and eating healthy food. If you still remain seriously overweight, you and your doctor might discuss these options.

Some people experience food cravings only now and then, while others have them daily or weekly.

Experts are increasingly urging people to know their BMI, a figure that takes into account not just weight but also height to indicate body fat.

When food producers cut the fat out of foods, they often replace it with extra sugar or other carbohydrates, which add calories.

Research clearly shows that most diets don’t work. Even those of us who lose weight on a diet generally regain most or all of the weight within a couple of years. But the way most diets are set up often leads to failure.

While you might need to rethink the kind of carbohydrates you eat, experts say you still need your carbs.

Although some studies show people on these diets can lose weight in the short term, questions remain as to whether they can maintain their weight loss and their health over time.

With all the diets out there to choose from these days, it's hard to know which ones are legitimate and which are diet fads.

Knowing you should eat a healthy diet is one thing, and doing it is another. Paying attention to the overall pattern of what you eat can help simplify the process.

Even with some basic knowledge about how to accomplish weight-loss goals, 66 percent of us are still overweight.