Best Weight Loss Diet Plans

With a crushing weight of 388 pounds pulling me down daily, I knew I had to do something.

Exercising was difficult because of my knee pain.

Diet. My eating habit had to change. I read a research article that reported that most obese people tend to underestimate the amount of food they eat by as much as 30%! That means that we tend not to believe that we eat as much as we actually do.

That was a eye opener for me. I decided to do three things:

• Research about the best weight loss diet out there
• Keep a detailed diary of everything - food, drinks, sweats, chips, chocolate, anything at all, that goes into my mouth for a month, even taking photographs of these and made album out of these
• I monitored my plate size and counted the whole amount of calories I take each day.
  

The following information are what I found. 

Choosing The Best Weight Loss Diet Program

In January 2005, the Journal of American Medical Association JAMA, published a report on the findings of a well researched 1-year trial of the effectiveness of the most popular weight loss diets.

They selected a range of diets like the Atkins diet which is a very low carbohydrate diet alongside other diets like the Zone diet, Weight Watchers, and Ornish (low fat) diet plans.

They randomly assigned 160 overweight adults divided into a group of 40 each to one of the above four diet plans. Their goal was to compare the realistic effectiveness of these diets to help lose weight and sustain the weight loss.

What did they find?

"Each popular diet modestly reduced body weight and several cardiac risk factors at 1 year. Overall dietary adherence rates were low, although increased adherence was associated with greater weight loss and cardiac risk factor reductions for each diet group" .

A similar study was again reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, published on the 26th of February 2009.

It compared the effectiveness of weight loss diets with different composition of fat, protein and carbohydrates amongst 811 overweight adults over a 2 years period, and found out that modest weight loss was achieved with reduced caloric intake, "regardless of which macro-nutrients they emphasize".

In summary, if you really want to lose weight, follow these 7 golden rules, and you will lose weight smoothly in the most healthy way and keep it off forever, irrespective of the weight loss diet you chose.

1. Irrespective of the type of diet you chose, the main thing is to pick a diet that provides no more than 1200 Kcal / day of energy, yet rick in essential nutrients to keep you healthy. Stick to it religiously.
   
2. Do not snack between meals. This is perhaps the most important, yet difficult behavioral change to adopt, if you most lose weight
3. Keep a strict Food Intake Diary. Record everything that goes into your mouth in a day, over the next two weeks. Take photographs of them and create an album. You can post it here online anonymously if you wish.
   
4. Increase your physical activity rate by simple ways like brisk walking for at least 30 minutes every day. Get a pedometer. Aim to do at least 10,000 steps in any given day. Using one will increase your exercise rate by up to 27 percent!
5. Get a bathroom weighing scale. Weigh yourself twice weekly (Sundays and Thursdays) and write it down. Do this regularly
6. See your doctor and discuss your weight loss plan with him or her and stick to it
7. If you still struggle, discuss with a weight loss expert. Use the forum here.

Avoid take-away and fast foods, foods high in sugar and saturated fat, see our section on balanced diet to give you an idea of what include in your meal. You can create the best weight loss diet for your self or opt to chose from the top weight loss diets on offer.

If you live in North America, BistroMD diet program offers delicious meals with healthy calorie counts. They have been voted one of the best weight loss diet provider in North America.

You can also use meal replacements to achieve your goal.

Top Weight Loss Diet Programs To Choose From

See top diet programs commonly used. Remember, irrespective of the diet program you choose, as long as you stick to their plan, you will succeed.

• Dukan Diet
• Medifast Diet plan
• Sainsbury Diet Plan
• BistroMD Meal Replacement Diet Program
• WeightWatchers
• Atkins Diet
• Ormish Diet
• Zone Weight Loss Diet
• South Beach Diet
• Unified Diet Plan
• Pritikin Diet Plans
• Mediterranean Diet program
• Jenny Craig Diet Plans
• Low Carb Diets
• Low Fat diets
• Sugar Busters
• The 5-Factor program - The Harley Pasternak celebrity Weight Loss Program

Going through all the above, it will be obvious that the best weight loss diet is a balanced diet eaten in small quantity, no more than three meals in a day, without snacking. Caloric counting and caloric restriction is very important in achieving your target weight.

Caloric intake in meals should be calculated with a view to your losing about 5% of your current body weight in 6 months at the minimum.

As a general rule, avoid very very low calorie diets, except under strict supervision of a nutritionist or expert weight-loss practitioner.

Aim to have no more than 1200 to 1,600 K Cal per day if you are male, and about 1000 to 1,200 K Cal per day for ladies.

Medical experts advise is that you should try not to lose more than 1kilogram (2.2 pounds) in weight in a week. Other diets you might have heard of or that you may be interested to find out more about include:

• HCG Weight Loss Diet
• Fruitarian Diet for Weight Loss
• Vegetarian Weight Loss Diet
• Raw Food Weight Loss Diet
• Anne Collins Weight Loss Diet
• Fad Weight Loss Diets
• Liquid Weight Loss Diet

Fad diet weight loss are diets that have very strict caloric and nutritional control usually administered over  a short period of time forcing you to lose weight rapidly but once you stop it, because they are often very unhealthy and cannot be continues for too long a time, you gain those weight back. They are not to be recommended unless used as a springboard to getting into a more controlled dietary program.