The Fat Loss 4 Idiots plan is all the rage these days. It’s a diet program that claims you can lose 9 lbs in 11 days, while eating your favorite foods.

To read the reviews, you’d think that the Fat Loss for Idiots program was the greatest thing to happen to the dieting world since…well, ever! The truth, in my opinion, falls a bit flat from the claims.

When you sign up for the program, you get access to an online meal generator. This software will plan your “meals” for the next 11 days. You’re able to select your favorite foods from a pre-defined list of foods. They do have vegetarian options, but if you’re vegetarian, you will have to eat a lot of fake meats (I learned this the hard way). You’ll get to eat 4 times a day…but at each of these “meals”, you are only able to eat one food.

The claim is that you will lose weight through a process of “calorie shifting”. In a nutshell, this means eating your calories from one source each time you eat and then changing it the next time. For breakfast, you’d eat primarily protein…lunch is primarily carbs, etc.

After 11 days of [...] Continue Reading…

eDiets is an online diet portal. They offer over 20 different diet plans ranging from popular weight loss diets (such as Atkins and the Blood Type Diet) to healthy living diets. They also have an award winning meal delivery service, Deliciously Yours.

eDiets is great because it has a little bit of something for everyone. They can help you plan for just about any diet under the sun. Most other diet sites focus on just one type of diet, which makes it difficult to use if you are trying to follow a diet that’s not included.

There have been so many different types of diet books published lately. All of them have their merits, but one of the hardest parts of following them is the meal planning–simply figuring out “What can I eat?”. While they often have a few sample menus in the book, or even different charts letting you know the nutritional content of various foods, many people find it to be confusing or just not enough information.

The website can help you by suggesting meal plans for the various diets, and offering a way for you to track what you eat.

eDiets is the perfect solution for just about anyone. After [...] Continue Reading…

The Eat to Live program was created by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. The focus is on eating a lot of vegetables and very little starches and meats. Not meant just as a weight loss technique, eating in this manner can reverse a whole host of diseases including adult onset diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and more!

The diet focuses on the idea of nutrient density…that is how many nutrients are packed into a food as a ratio to calories. Fruits and vegetables of course have the highest nutrient density, with something like candy having little nutrient density at all.

According to Dr. Fuhrman, you should start every meal with a HUGE salad, then also eat many other vegetables, which can be cooked. You can eat one cup of a starch per day (rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.) It’s better if you avoid meat and dairy products, but Dr. Fuhrman says that it’s OK to follow a 90/10 rule–if you eat on the plan 90% of the time, you’ll be in pretty good shape.

You can eat as many fruits and veggies as you want, but you should strive to eat a pound of leafy (salad) greens and a pound of cooked vegetables a day. This [...] Continue Reading…

Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet is perhaps one of the strangest diets out there. It seems like every dieter’s fantasy, doesn’t it? Eat nothing but cookies and still lose weight?

The sad truth is that you can’t just stuff your face with Oreos or mom’s chocolate chip cookies all day. To properly follow the Cookie Diet, you have to eat Dr. Siegal’s specially formulated cookies.

Dr. Siegal created these cookies to help his patients lose weight. He designed them using certain food proteins to create an appetite suppressant effect. Many people find this to be the case.

If you want to completely follow the Cookie Diet, you will eat six cookies total throughout the day. For dinner, you should eat lean meat and one cup of vegetables. Of course, calorie counts vary based on the choices you make, but in general, this adds up to about 800 calories per day.

The Cookie Diet website fully admits that the cookies are not delicious. They may taste good, but “delicious cookies make people fat”. Which I suppose is true. How many times have you suddenly found that you’ve eaten through the entire box of Thin Mints?

Nonetheless, the cookies should help suppress your appetite, making you lose [...] Continue Reading…

The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet, written by Drs. Rachael and Richard Heller, is based on the idea that some people are “addicted to carbohydrates” and have problems losing weight because of this. The two lost a combined 200lbs themselves by following this diet.

To follow the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet, you simply eat two low carb meals each day and one “reward” meal, which can include anything you want. Of course, you are encouraged to make healthy choices for the reward meal, but nothing is off-limits. The only stipulation for the reward meal is that it can only last one hour.

The low carb meals should consist primarily of vegetables or salads with a small portion of cheese or meat. The book of the same name has recommendations for low carb meals.

The Hellers believe that by restricting carbohydrates for most of the day, you will release less insulin, which will help you to lose weight. However, the reward meal is there to keep you feeling satisfied and not deprived. They are also against going into ketosis, and the reward meal will keep you out of ketosis.

The good thing about this diet is that no food is forbidden, so you are not likely to [...] Continue Reading…