I recently completed months of research to compile a list of the top ten diets that work. I put together the list at the request of MANY personal training clients. In performing my research, I not only uncovered key aspects of successful diets, I also found shared characteristics of unsuccessful diets.

1) Starvation Is NEVER Successful

Never means NEVER!I discovered one diet, for example, that limited individuals to 500 calories a day. The diet was developed by an Italian doctor, and combines the 500 calorie diet with injections of HCG, which is a growth hormone found in young boys. Despite a lack of creditable evidence that the combination “aids” weight loss, the diet has been around for years.

Individuals do, in fact, lose weight rapidly on the diet. However, common sense tells us that ANYONE would lose weight on 500 calories a day!

H-E-L-L-O!

I discovered that individuals tend to feel tired and weak on the diet, and gaining back the lost weight is the general rule. Frequent periods of no weight loss,(plateaus), are common due to a profound metabolic slowdown. Plateaus were far less common in the top ten diets that work.

2) The Diet Has Little Variety

Diets that offer little variety can be boring and unsafe. If a diet focuses on one food group, for example, such as protein, it lacks essential vitamins, minerals and fiber. Each of these has an important role in an individual’s health and well being

The monotony of eating too much of one kind of food can make sticking to the diet long term, very difficult. Also, if an individual manages to lose some weight, the chances are great that the weight will return when they return to their previous eating preferences.

3) The Plan Has No “Exit” StrategyFor a weight loss program to be truly succesful. a maintenance plan must be included. The top ten diets that work, for example, all had a maintenance plan to hep individuals keep the weight off