It isn’t very often you find a diet program encouraging people to eat more. Most adults on a weight loss diet are cutting their consumption of fat, carbohydrates or pretty much everything. A study published in the journal PLOS Medicine suggests a simple approach shown to be effective over a 24-year period.

Analyzing data from 133,468 American adults from the Nurse’s Health Study, Health Professional’s Follow Up Study and Nurse’s Health Study II, researchers determined that each extra daily serving of fruit was associated with about a quarter of a pound weight loss over 4 years. It was about the same for each extra serving of non-starchy vegetables.

True Strength Moment: The trick here is to choose your vegetables wisely. Where non-starchy vegetable consumption was associated with weight loss, consumption of starchy vegetables had the opposite effect. Over the same 4-year period, a 1.13 pound weight gain was estimated for pea consumption and just over 2 pounds would be gained by eating corn.