People end up at my office door for a variety of reasons. Their MD may have referred them to me because they are beginning to show signs of conditions associated with obesity. They may be feeling uncomfortably large or that their eating is out of control, or they may have a big event coming up, such as a reunion or wedding. Perhaps a life insurance evaluation revealed some worrisome findings.

Yes or Superstar Foods include most fruits and vegetables, and they are so important that I’m devoting a whole chapter to them. (Notice there’s not a No Foods chapter!) What makes Yes Foods so valuable and why do I call them Superstar Foods? Well, they offer an incredible variety of benefits for their calorie count: they fill you up and sustain you with fiber, taste good thanks to their innate flavors, and offer nutrients that will keep you energized and satisfied.

Every member of your family, no matter how young, has some kind of relationship with food. It may be a very healthy relationship, which means that you eat mostly for fuel, you eat to feel pleasantly full, you eat certain foods because they really appeal to you, and you eat a balanced diet because it makes you feel good mentally and physically.

Yes Foods are:

“The Satiety Index of Common Foods” was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 1995. In this study, Dr. Suzanne Holt of the University of Sydney, Australia, designed a study in which specific portions of thirty-eight different foods were fed to test subjects, and then she recorded the subjects’ perceived hunger following each feeding. The study specifically looked at the time period two hours after feeding.

Some families give up before they even try when it comes to Yes Foods. They have all kinds of reasons for not stocking them: they’re too expensive, too hard to get, too hard to prepare, unappetizing, or boring. Sometimes these attitudes are holdovers from childhood, when fresh produce actually was more difficult to get. Perhaps in your childhood you were primarily exposed only to endless apples, oranges, lettuce, and cucumbers—no wonder you got the idea produce was dull.

A recent report (LA Times, May 14, 2007) suggests that a low-cost approach at schools is to offer the kids new, healthier foods by specifically asking them, “Do you want fruit or juice?” Just putting out the selections may not be enough. At a Connecticut school lunch, servers were trained to ask the question, so kids were aware that there were specific choices; 90 percent of kids took the foods offered and 80 percent actually ate them.³ This means that kids may be more willing to try Yes Foods than we think. They just need some encouragement and enlightenment. There is a great lesson here for your Family Food Makeover, too: don’t forget to give your children healthy choices verbally as well. Simply putting them out on display may not be enough to nudge them into actually trying them.

Yes Foods aren’t hard to prepare, but you do need to give some thought to their preparation, or you’ll fall prey to the Buy-It-and-Forget-It Syndrome. How many times have you bought crisper drawers full of fresh fruits and veggies, with the best of intentions, only to forget about them and throw them out weeks later? Buying Yes Foods isn’t enough—you have to plan what you’re going to do with them. (See more about food planning in Chapter 6 and food preparation in Chapter 7.)

You need to get creative when it comes to incorporating Yes Foods into the daily diet. Here are some great ways to sneak more Yes Foods into your family’s meals and snacks (chapters 6 and 7 will get more specific):

Most people meet their downfall by expecting change to happen too fast. You need to remember that each person in the family will move at his or her own pace, and decide when things are or are not working. Frustration, boredom with the notion of change, anger, and other feelings will often surface, sometimes repeatedly. Just be patient, and keep those Yes Foods accessible and appealing.

The typical dieter is able to control food urges long enough to lose weight—that’s the exciting part—but then magically expects to go back to old habits without regaining the lost weight. Unfortunately, nothing magical happens to your body in the process of dieting that allows you free rein once you get to your goal weight. You’re still the same machine, and your weight is still determined by the same principle of calories in-calories out.

If you or members of your family want to lose weight, shunning carbohydrates, even the grain selections, is really not necessary, although many of the fad diets recommend this. You will want to incorporate four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables into your daily diet, along with one to three servings of whole grain carbohydrates daily. That’s one serving of grains at each of your meals, a serving of fruit and vegetable at each meal, and one fruit or vegetable as a snack. I usually recommend starting your day with one healthy grain serving because a balanced breakfast will be very filling if it includes this grain portion. If someone in the family needs to lose weight, dropping one grain serving and only having one or two grain servings of carbohydrates daily should be satisfying, and still allow for weight loss, if you are eating HFL-style and exercising. Active people or athletes may need more grain servings (closer to five or six measured portions). Most people don’t need to cut out the grain group entirely because it provides a variety of nutrients, as well as hunger satisfaction.

I supply portion/calorie counts with Yes Foods merely to reflect the reality that even Yes Foods have calories. Though these foods can be eaten in relative abundance with little calorie penalty when compared to other foods, no food should be eaten without hunger and fullness awareness. That’s how we get into trouble—by finding ways to justify uncontrolled eating habits. The fact that fruits and veggies are so healthy and delicious is not license to eat mindlessly. That’s an attitude that the HFL program does not support. Mindful, selective eating has to be a core component of your family’s new attitude about food.

Thirst and hunger signals can get confused. If you are feeling empty a short time after a well-balanced meal or snack, consider drinking a glass of water, iced tea, or calorie-free flavored water, just to see if it’s your thirst that needs to be quenched.

All family members need to embrace a successful Food Attitude Makeover. If some of your kids or your spouse is reluctant or unconvinced, at least get an agreement to cooperate with the new efforts within the home. (Whatever one chooses to do outside the home may ultimately be modified by in-home changes and become healthy habits.)

These fruits and veggies are considered Maybe So Foods, meaning portion control is recommended because of dense carbohydrate or some fat content. The serving size should equal about sixty to eighty calories, similar to a grain serving, which they are replacing.