South Beach Diet
This is a three phase diet with flexible food choices. Phase one is a two week kick start to help stabilize blood sugar and reduce cravings. Phase two is a gradual weight loss period that lasts until you’ve reached your goal weight. Phase three is the maintenance phase that you follow indefinitely.
This is one of those diets that work because it has no extreme restrictions on what you eat. The foods are very satisfying with meals like whole-wheat pasta, shrimp scampi, and black bean quesadillas.
The online program costs $5 a week.
Jillian Michael’s Diet
This is a new and very popular diet by fitness trainer Jillian Michael’s of NBC’s hit TV Show, The Biggest Loser. The diet has more science built into it such as eating foods that are shown to boost metabolism and work better for your body type.
There is also an exercise element involved with workout plans and videos offered through the program.
The website has several online tools to guide your weight loss success and at $4 a week, it’s a good deal.
Glycemic Index Diet
This diet is a favorite among diabetics and for good reason. The glycemic index of a food is a rating on its effect on blood sugar levels; a smaller index food would have little effect on glucose levels after eating. This is important because it has been shown that high glycemic foods, such as foods high in sugar, spike insulin levels. This in turn causes hunger cravings and triggers the body to store fat.
There are several books and online articles that explain what foods to eat on this diet. Not every food has to have a low glycemic index, but it should be the majority.
It’s interesting to note that several popular diet programs, such as the South Beach diet, involve the glycemic index principle for their food choices.
Whole Foods Diet or Natural Diet
The natural diet is probably the most ideal diet. Eating foods that aren’t processed or manufactured, and don’t have any preservatives, artificial sweeteners, or other chemicals, is how the body was meant to eat. No foods that come in a box, bag, or wrapper is another guiding motto.
What makes this diet difficult is that most people grew up eating processed food and crave the salt, sugar, flavorings. Also, it actually costs much more to buy organic, whole foods to the point where its not affordable. There is also a lack of knowledge as to minimal variety of foods need to be eaten as whole foods are not fortified with various vitamins and minerals like most cereals and processed foods are, and as a result, people can get deficient in some key nutrients. On the other side, whole foods such as fruits and vegetables naturally contain nutrients not present in processed foods such as enzymes, carotenoids, and phytosterols.
Summary
If you are short on time and need a packaged meal plan, I would recommend one of the online diet programs listed above. If you have some more perseverance, a natural diet or even a glycemic index diet would be good too. These are examples of diets that work and will improve weight loss.