You’ve made the decision to lose weight and you go to Amazon.com and search for “diet plans” and you get 1,468 diet books. Then you go to Google and type “diet plans” and you get 17,600,000 indexed search results. How do you start? How do you know if the diet plan you choose is right for you? What criteria should you use to evaluate the various diet plans?
First, let me congratulate you on your decision to lose those extra pounds. You have taken the first step towards a healthier and happier life. If you are more than 30 pounds overweight or have any pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, see your doctor. Let him know your decision to lose weight and ask for his advice. Be sure to ask:
- What is my ideal weight?
- What weight loss books, plans or programs do you recommend?
- Does my current medical condition limit me from exercising?
- What are the benefits of seeing a registered dietitian?
- Does my health insurance cover any of the costs of a weight loss program?
After your doctor’s visit, your next step is to set your weight loss goals. Write down your goals. I cannot stress this step enough. Don’t skip this step. Use SMART goal design. SMART stands for specific, measurable, realistic, and time-limited action.
Be specific, don’t say “I’m going to lose weight” but say “I’m going to lose 30 pounds by the 4th of July.” Step on your scale once a week to measure your progress. It is best to weigh yourself at the same time of day to get the best basis for comparison. I have gotten into the habit of weighing myself right before I shower in the morning. Make a list of the actions you are going to take to reach your goal (remember to write them down). Make sure your goals are realistic. For example, don’t set a goal to lose 60 pounds in two months which is an unrealistic time frame. Set small goals that lead up to our main goal. If your main goal is to lose 52 pounds in six months, then your small goal should be to lose 2 pounds per week. One more step in goal setting is to write down the obstacles between you and your desired weight, and next to each obstacle, write down how you plan to overcome that obstacle.
Depending on the weight loss plan/program you select, you can go back to your goals and modify them accordingly, but it is best to set your weight loss goals before selecting a plan. And, I repeat, write down your goals. There have been countless studies on goal setting and the overwhelming result has always been that people who have taken the time and effort to write down their goals have achieved greater success than those who have not.
Armed with information and advice from your doctor and specific, written goals, you are ready to select the diet plan/program that is right for you. Dietary plans/programs can be placed into two broad categories: (1) plans that you implement yourself and (2) plans that provide food and/or supplements plus ongoing support. The primary example of the first category is purchasing and reading a diet book and then implementing the authors’ suggestions. Examples of the second category include Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Medifast, and Optifast.
This is where you’ll realize the first benefit of your SMART goal setting. What is your goal? Is your goal to lose 20 pounds so you can look your best for your best friends wedding in two months or is your goal to lose 50 pounds in six months and keep it off? In other words, do you have a specific short-term goal or a specific long-term goal? I hope your goal includes keeping the weight off, but if not, that’s fine. Just keep in mind that even if you have a short-term goal, you will feel so much better without the extra weight that you may decide to modify your goal to keep the weight off.
If your goal is short-term, you need to compare plans that allow you to lose your goal weight by the specific date you’ve set. Depending on the time of fame, you may want to check out plans categorized as very low calorie diets (VLCDs). Wikipedia defines a VLCD as:
- Have 800 calories or less per day.
- Formulated nutritionally complete liquid meals
- Carbohydrates can be completely absent
- The products are usually in powdered form and mixed with water or another low-calorie beverage.
Most VLCDs recommend drinking large amounts of water every day. There are health risks with a VLCD, including gallstones and constipation (due to lack of fiber). One important note, VLCDs are not recommended for those seeking permanent weight loss. They are not sustainable.
If VLCDs aren’t for you, then your next step is to look at low-calorie diets. Low calorie diets are defined as those that recommend less than 1,200 calories per day. These are not as extreme as VLCD and therefore do not have the associated health risks.
If your goals are long-term, you should focus on plans/programs that are sustainable. This means that you must select a diet that you can follow every day. What foods does the diet recommend? It is best to choose a diet that allows for a greater variety of foods. If the diet is too restrictive it will be more difficult to follow it.
Also, make sure that the diet plan includes regular physical exercise. The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) established in 1994 by Rena Wing, Ph.D., of Brown School of Medicine, and James O. Hill, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, is tracking more than 5,000 people who have lost significant amounts of weight. weight and kept it off for long periods of time. Of those 5,000 participants, 94% increased their physical activity and 90% exercised, on average, about an hour a day. A very interesting note is that walking is the most frequently reported physical activity. In other words, you don’t have to do high-intensity physical activity to lose weight. Two 30-minute walks per day will do the trick. The key is consistency.
The average NWCR participant has lost 66 pounds and kept it off for more than 5.5 years. What weight loss programs did you use to lose weight? Well, 45% of the participants lost weight on their own and 55% lost weight with the help of some type of program. What does this mean? It means that no matter if you choose to implement the advice found in a diet book or join a program like Weight Watchers, you can lose weight and keep it off. To learn more about NWCR and to read some of the success stories, visit http://www.nwcr.ws/default.htm.
Before we go any further, we need to talk about cost. How much is this going to cost me? Do I have to buy food or supplements? If I choose a program, do I have to join for a specific time? To state the obvious, purchasing a diet book and implementing the suggestions will be the lowest cost alternative. That being said, will you be able to do it alone? Only you can answer that question. You can try the low-cost alternative first, and if you need outside support, you can look into diet programs.
So how do you choose the right book? The best place to start is to check out the top ten diet books and see if one seems to work. A panel of experts from Health Magazine tested 60 popular diets, and here are the top ten:
- The Structure House Weight Loss Plan
- The step diet
- checkweigher
- The eat right diet
- The volumetric eating plan
- The best diet of life
- The solution
- You: on a diet
- The Sonoma Diet
- The spectre
The folks at HealthNews.com listed the top ten most popular diets:
- jenny craig
- Mediterranean diet
- zone diet
- checkweigher
- volumetric
- Flat Belly Diet
- diet to lose weight
- South Beach Diet
- Atkins diet
- sugar hunter diet
These two lists should give you a good starting point for evaluating diets and dietary programs.
You may be wondering if there have been any research studies comparing diets that point me in the right direction. And the answer is yes: Stanford University School of Medicine researchers completed the largest and longest-running comparison ever of 4 popular diets published March 7, 2007 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study involved 311 women between the ages of 25 and 50 with a body mass index (BMI) between 27 and 40. They were randomly assigned to follow the Atkins, Zone, LEARN, or Ornish diet.
The 311 participants received 8 weeks of classes with a dietitian so they fully understood their assigned diet. After that no assistance was provided. They were evaluated at six months and one year. Although there were women on each diet who lost 30 pounds or more after one year, those assigned to the Atkins diet not only lost more weight than the other participants, but also experienced the greatest benefits in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure.
There are many nuances to the Stanford study that are too numerous to review here, but what I find interesting is: (1) this is a study in a real life situation (the women were alone after the first eight weeks of classes ), (2) there were women in each group who lost more than 30 pounds after one year, and (3) the selected diets included a low-carbohydrate diet (Atkins), a high-carbohydrate diet (Ornish), a moderately low carbohydrate (Zone ) and a diet that follows the USDA National Food Pyramid Guidelines (LEARN). So even though Atkins outperformed the other diets, that doesn’t mean you can’t lose weight and keep it off with a variety of diets.
If you decide early on that a weight loss program, with its built-in support system, will give you the best chance of reaching your weight loss goals, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- What does the program include?
- Does the program offer group or individual counseling?
- Do you have to buy food or supplements?
- Does the program help you be more active?
- Does the program help you maintain weight?
- What are the qualifications of the staff?
- Are they registered dietitians?
- Who oversees the program?
- What kind of experience do they have?
- Does the program or products have any risks?
- Are the recommended supplements safe?
- Do you talk to your doctor?
- If you have a pre-existing condition, they will coordinate with your doctor.
- How much does the program cost?
- Is there a registration fee?
- What’s your refund policy?
- Are there fees for medical exams?
- If they give food what is the cost?
- Do you pay in advance or as you go?
It doesn’t matter if you have a short or long term goal, choose a diet book or diet program, track your results and if your first option doesn’t work, don’t give up. You can lose weight. Reassess and start over what you can lose and avoid those extra pounds.