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There are two schools of thought when it comes to the health benefits or hazards of diet drinks.

Once and for all, we wanted to know: Can diet soda make you fat? So we went to the SHAPE diet doctor, Mike Roussell, PhD, to get his opinion. Here’s what he had to say:

In a word: no. While drinking diet soda every day isn’t exactly good for your health, the chances of it sabotaging your weight-loss efforts are slim. The common misconception regarding the role of diet soda and weight gain comes from a couple of studies that received a lot of media attention. One such study looked at more 6,500 participants and found that diet soda drinkers were 67 percent more like to have diabetes and 37 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome (a combo of symptoms that is basically where pre-diabetes meets heart disease). What’s more, data from the Framingham Heart Study, the longest running heart disease study in the US, found a 56-percent increase in metabolic syndrome when people drank one or more diet sodas per day!

Read more: Is Diet Soda Making You Fat?

Bring a list and skip the center aisles at the grocery store to stay on track.

We’re with you: Dieting is no picnic. But here’s a little secret — it’s not nearly as hard as most of us think. “A lot of women believe they need to change everything, but in reality small tweaks to your diet can make a huge difference,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. We’ve got ten absolutely painless little fixes, culled from the latest research and the country’s leading weight-loss experts, to make dropping those pounds as easy as 1, 2, 3, and beyond.

Read more: 10 Ways to Make Your Diet Easier

An apple is a healthy snack, but if you don’t eat anything else with it, you may overeat later.

Put down that light yogurt, it may be making you fat. As it turns out, a number of foods that are commonly thought to be great for weight loss can actually stimulate the appetite. We spoke with Marjorie Nolan, R.D., National Spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, to get the skinny on foods that can trigger hunger and sabotage your diet.a

Read more: 9 “diet” foods that make you hungrier

One option ranks first in a comparison of plans like Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, and others.

Being on a diet doesn’t always mean good things for your health. You want to make sure your new diet will provide enough calories and doesn’t skimp on important nutrients or entire food groups. The Best Diets for Healthy Eating rankings take both nutrition and safety into account.

Read more: Best Diets for Healthy Eating

Coenzyme Q10 is an essential ingredient used by cells to make energy.

The use of supplements in the United States has risen in the last 20 years: While only 40% of the American adult population took supplements in 1994, the number rose to over half of all adults by 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This increase could be attributed to more people becoming concerned that they aren’t getting enough nutrients, but how do you know which vitamins you need, how much you need and how often you need them? Read on to get the lowdown on 11 of the most common dietary supplements. If you’re considering adding any of them to your healthcare regimen, be sure to talk to your doctor first about any side effects, risks or complications.

Read more: 11 Common Dietary Supplements Explained

Some fads are helpful, some harmful, and some won’t do much either way.

Let’s face it: The rules of weight loss—eat less, move more, treats in moderation— are a drag. And they don’t fit with most dieters’ quick-fix, thinner-by-dinner expectations. Cue diet crutches: tricks, based on scant science, that may speed up results. So if a friend swears that munching on grapefruit gets her into skinny jeans, or a coworker credits ice water for his sleek physique, should you try it too?

Not so fast. Some diet crutches are helpful, some harmful, and some won’t do much either way. We asked registered dietitians for the bottom line (“skip it,” “try it,” or “do it right”) on the most common diet crutches.

Read more: Diet crutches: What works, what doesn’t

People who drink diet soda for years can have much larger waists than those who don’t.

Think you’re making a healthier choice when you reach for diet soda instead of a sugary soft drink? Think again.

Diet soft drinks may have minimal calories, but they can still have a major impact on your waistline, according to two studies presented at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

Researchers at the Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio tracked 474 people, all 65 to 74 years old, for nearly a decade, measuring the subjects’ height, weight, waist circumference, and diet soft drink intake every 3.6 years. The waists of those who drank diet soft drinks grew 70 percent more than those who avoided the artificially sweetened stuff; people who drank two or more servings a day had waist-circumference increases that were five times larger than non-diet-soda consumers.

Read more: Diet soda may be making you fat

Ignoring standard thinking could actually help you slim down — and keep the pounds off.

If you find it hard to stick to a strict diet, here’s some good news: Breaking the rules could actually help you slim down—and keep the pounds off over the long term. A study published in International Journal of Obesity found that dieters with a flexible strategy that allowed for sweets and other indulgences were significantly more successful at maintaining weight loss during the three-year study than those who strived for rigid control of their eating habits.

That’s because the rigid control group typically had an “all or nothing” mindset. As a result, they yo-yoed between shunning all goodies—including their favorite foods—and falling off the diet wagon completely. Flexible dieters, on the other hand, deemed it good enough to “more or less” follow their weight loss plan, without letting slip-ups escalate into eating binges. But which rules are okay to break without sabotaging your diet? NSCA-certified conditioning coach Holly Mosier, author of Stress Less, Weigh Less (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2011), offers these myth-busting insights:

Read more: 5 Diet Rules It’s OK to Break

You may need to add foods with more fats, but make sure you’re eating the right kinds.

Modifying your diet to “eat healthfully” doesn’t require dramatic changes. In fact, it may only call for some minor tweaks. Certain small changes serve up huge, lifelong benefits that can help you lose weight, ward off disease, and feel more upbeat and energetic all day long.

“It’s all about self-care,” says Beth Reardon of Duke Integrative Medicine and Caring.com’s senior food and nutrition editor. “You have to ask, ‘Am I worth a little extra effort to think about what I’m putting in my body?’ You — and the body that you rely on — deserve nothing less.”

Read more: 6 Simple Diet Game-Changers