The best strategy I have found for losing weight and keeping it off is Intermittent Fasting--the culprit in weight gain is insulin--not calories--the key is to keep insulin levels low-and fasting does that. These nutritional "gurus" who say you have to eat something every few hours---i.e 3 meals a day plus snacks-don't have a clue what they are talking about--this strategy is the reason we have the epidemic of obesity we have today---Dr. Jason Fung (a Toronto area nephrologist) has written an excellent book ("The Obesity Code") that spells this out very eloquently. The diet industry (Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers etc) have criticized fasting as dangerous etc---nothing could be further from the truth--they are simply afraid of something that is free and would cut into their "billion dollar" industry