In a scene from the sitcom "King of Queens," Carrie comes home to find her husband, Doug, making breakfast on Friday morning.

"Pancakes!" She exclaims. "Sausage too? What happened to your diet?"

"I think it got lost in the shuffle somewhere around Tuesday," he answers.

She asks him to at least eat a light lunch.

"What is the point of that?" he replies. "You can't resurrect a diet on a Friday afternoon. That's crazy."

Diet disasters like Doug's are common. Deprivation and desperation, denial and doughnuts — they seem to go together like "diets" and "don't work."

In a recent study, researchers followed more than 4,000 men and women in their 20s and 30s for more than 10 years. While only about 25 percent of the study participants resisted weight gain, they were the folks who ate regularly and had no history of dieting.

The most vulnerable to weight gain were yo-yo dieters, who went on and off and on and off various regimens.

So how do you lose weight and keep it off?

You want to gradually change your lifestyle, rather than hop onboard the latest diet trend.

Think Mediterranean (lean meats as side dishes, lots of veggies and fruit, healthy oils like olive oil, and omega-3-rich fish, avocados, and nuts) or focus on foods from the earth so that plant-based eating becomes your main focus.

Then eat as much as you like (your appetite will naturally self-regulate) and watch your health transform as your body shape does too.