Good For: An added help to anyone wanting to lose weight independently.

Overview:

An online diet and fitness service claiming to offer a ‘360 degree approach’, Weightplan offers professionally-designed exercise workouts alongside menu plans and weight loss tools in order to empower their members to achieve the body they want.

Whether this involves slimming down, weight maintenance or building muscle, it uses online tools and an iPhone app to help independent dieters or fitness fans gain information and track food and exercise calories in order to take control of their weight loss and lifestyles.

The five menu plans offered include Low Fat, Healthy Heart, Avoid Wheat, Low GI and Vegetarian.

Other tools include food diaries, a food database, recipes, exercises, online support, activity diary, workout sheets, shopping list and online weigh in.

Pros:

• Offers a food dairy to keep track of the food you eat.
• Hundreds of recipes and five meal plans.
• Learn the calorie count of the food you plan to eat with the online tool provided; Weightplan boasts that all major supermarkets and restaurants are covered.
• Unlike many other diet or weight loss programmes, Weightplan includes a very strong emphasis on exercise.
• Its mobile app means that you can take your exercise or diet plans with you wherever you go. The entire site is available on mobile as well.
• Calculates your daily calorie burn.
• Flexible; the system allows you to add meals from other meal plans or even to add your own at any stage.
• Designed by a team of dieticians and fitness experts.
• Its iPhone fitness app is recommended by FHM magazine (Dec 2011).
• Includes barcode entry to make it easier to add food and drink to your diary.
• Separate online sections for men and women.

Cons:

• Compared to the bigger diet programmes such as Weight Watchers and Tesco, the number of meal plans available is limited.
• Weightplan’s Gym Training app is only available on iPhone at the moment.
• No suggestion of personalisation.
• Can’t search for more information on the site without continually being asked to sign up and input your details.
• While it contains lots of advice and information, you are still essentially on your own following your plans or your workouts so willpower is vital.

Exercise:

Exercise is an important part of the Weightplan offering. Membership includes an exercise dairy, with more than 40 workouts and hundreds of videos, as well as advice for beginner, intermediate and advanced fitness levels. There is also an activity diary to keep track of the calories burnt; meanwhile, the Gym Training app is available on the iPhone.

Summary:

Weightplan is perhaps more likely to be a direct competitor of a site like weightlossresources.co.uk, as opposed to Weight Watchers, Slimming World or Tesco Diets etc…

It believes in providing you with the tools you need to take control of your weight loss and/ or fitness, either in the short or longer term, but the emphasis is always on you. Weightplan doesn’t exist in the ‘concrete’ world and doesn’t offer quite the same level of hand holding as its many competitors. Neither does it seem to offer the same level of personalisation.

It is more likely to be a good choice for anyone who wants to go it alone with their diet or fitness aims and doesn’t feel the need to be part of a more controlled dieting environment.

Where to Buy:

Sign up at the official website at www.WeightPlan.com.

Special Offers:

Sign up for a year and save 52% on the standard rate (£74.99). Save 22% on three month membership at £29.99.

If you’re someone who often struggles with emotional eating or difficulties really reading your body and what it’s hungry, you will definitely want to pay attention to this hot diet product now on the market, the “I Can Make You Thin” weight loss CD and book.

Written by Paul McKenna, this book works off the underlying premise that by restructuring your thought patterns relating to food, eating, and your body weight, you can overcome the exact habits and patterns that are keeping you from achieving your goal body weight.

He offers a program that will help you put behind you food cravings and negative body images and instead focus on the healthiest way to achieve lasting weight loss – natural and healthy eating.

But will this program really work for you? Let’s look at a few things to consider.

Pros:

• Can help to stop emotional eating
• Lowers the incidence of food cravings
• Easy and fast to use – just 26 minutes long
• Can be practiced daily and you can use it right away
• Doesn’t require any special calorie counting or intricate meal planning
• You’ll naturally turn to healthier foods thus improving your well-being
• You can eat what you want without worry

Cons:

• Will not help those who choose to still gravitate towards very high fat, high calorie food choices
• Doesn’t discuss exercise to any great extent
• Some people may have more difficulty than others breaking their bad habits

Summary:

Overall, this product is a very great idea for anyone even if weight loss isn’t the goal. Almost everyone in our society today has some type of issue surrounding listening to natural hunger cues and not eating for emotional reasons and any help you can get to overcome this will be both beneficial to maintaining your body weight and keeping your health level high.

It still would be a good idea if you plan on using this program for weight loss to spend some time getting acquainted with the calorie intakes in various foods you eat as that will further help you ensure that you are taking in an appropriate amount of energy to see weight loss.

If you can combine smart food choices with this program that teaches you to stop eating when you’re full, you will without a doubt see the success you’re looking for. Be sure to also get started on a proper workout program as well to compliment the changes you’re making with your diet and see even better results yet.

Where To Buy:

Paul McKenna’s “I Can Make You Thin” (Book & CD) can be purchased online at Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk.

For a weight loss plan that’s all about moderation, the Sonoma Diet is one to consider. This plan is based on the premise that serving sizes are one of the biggest reasons people gain weight or struggle to maintain their current body weight and thus allows for plenty of food variety provided you’re eating the right amounts.

The plan is divided up into three phases and the first phase will be the more restricted phase where you do cut out sugars and refined flours while focusing on fruits, vegetables, and lean sources of protein, and then each successive phase will allow you to add a few more foods back in.

The plan also encourages learning what it means to focus on health and pleasure rather than feelings of deprivation while on a diet. In the later part of the plan you’ll also be able to enjoy your favorite glass of wine or indulge your sweet tooth in a dessert on occasion.

Let’s take a closer look at what this plan provides.

Pros:

• Available in both print and online formats for those who have specific preferences
• You will receive a personalized meal plan to follow
• Plan contains many different recipes making it incredibly easy to follow
• Offers various different tracking tools to ensure that you realize success
• Overall health is supported as plenty of fruits, vegetables, and proteins are consumed

Cons:

• The plan does not offer any solid guidelines with regards to exercise

Summary:

Overall, the Sonoma Diet is a good one because it’s going to teach you the importance of eating healthy and in moderation. You won’t feel highly restricted on this plan like you may on others you’ve used and that will most definitely increase your success rate.

Many people do enjoy the relaxed nature of the program and the fact that it does focus on health and learning how to enjoy your food, so if you feel like you are in a war with your diet and nutrition, this program may finally help you break free.

Usable by just about anyone, this is a good plan to invest in.

Where To Buy:

The Sonoma Diet is available to buy online from the official website, www.SonomaDiet.com.

The Strip The Fat program is one that’s based on easy to follow tips that will allow you to make some quick changes to your lifestyle that will get you on the path to your goal weight. If you’re someone who’s tired of intricate diet approaches that install very strict rules that must be followed, you’re going to like the flexible approach that this plan provides.

While you are offered specific meals to consume while on the plan, you can tailor these to your schedule so that the plan is one that you can easily use while living your regular life.

Let’s give you a few more facts regarding what this program is all about.

Pros:

• Easy to read format of quick tips that you can apply
• Learn how to navigate through restaurant menus
• Discover diet and exercise myths that prevent results
• Shows you how to fit in exercise into a busy schedule
• Comes with an online meal generator
• The diet is easily able to fit in with most people’s schedules and is adjustable to your needs

Cons:

• The plan doesn’t provide for a lot of structure so some people may find they get confused
• If you aren’t tracking your calories yourself, you may still not lose weight
• There isn’t a full workout program to follow
• If you don’t like the meals that are provided to you, you may run into some struggles

Summary:

Overall, if you’re someone who does have some health and nutrition background already, this plan will provide good weight loss as you’ll understand how much you should be eating to get fat loss taking place. Unfortunately though, the plan itself doesn’t provide a very structured diet set-up where precise calories, protein, fats, and carbs are calculated, so unless you’re willing to put in some time to figure this out yourself, you may not get the results you’re looking for.

If you just want those easy to use tips though and don’t want something as rigid, then it’s definitely the program for you. There isn’t a lot of discussion on exercise however, so to get the absolute best results from using this program you’ll want to look elsewhere at a full workout plan to use.

Where To Buy:

The Strip That Fat program is only available to buy online from the official website, www.StripThatFat.com.

If you’re someone who battles with emotional eating and that’s one of the biggest reasons that you can’t seem to reach your goal weight, you’ll definitely want to consider the Diet Watch program that’s out.

Rather than just taking a standard diet prescription approach to this plan like so many other diets do where you’re prescribed an exact plan to use, this program will look at the reasons you are overeating in the first place.

By learning to recognize what’s causing you to take in the foods you shouldn’t, you’ll be better able to lose weight and then ward off weight regain into the future.

Let’s take a quick look at what this program is all about.

Pros:

• Encourages both diet and exercise
• Provides plenty of user support including forums, chats, blogs, and an entire community of users
• Gives you a structured plan to follow
• If you prefer to use a different diet approach (Atkins, Jenny Craig, etc), that’s perfectly possible with this plan.
• Provides tools that you can use to track your progress
• Offers a personalized meal planner so you can be sure that you’re eating on track
• Allows you to gain control over emotional eating so you can have better diet success

Cons:

• Doesn’t offer quite the same amount of choices for food options as some other plans do, but there’s still plenty of variety to keep most people well satisfied

Summary:

Overall, if you want an all-inclusive plan that will not only help you to lose weight but also teach you to maintain that weight in the long run, this program can’t be beat. The amount of customer support that’s offered also really helps it stand above the rest and this means that any time you are in need of help, finding that help will not be difficult.

This plan can easily cater towards anyone’s food preferences and needs as well so it’s perfect for just about anyone.

Overall, this program would be an excellent option to use if you want safe and effective weight loss.

Where To Join:

Join Diet Watch online at the official website, www.DietWatch.com.

One of the most commonly used weight loss diets around, the Atkins Diet is known for its low carb approach. While the Atkins diet has gone through many changes as the years passed by and the latest version is a much more healthy approach than previous versions when it first came out, some people will definitely find this program difficult to maintain. While others will find it’s a breeze to keep up and figure it’s the best diet they’ve ever been on.

As you move through the Atkins diet you’ll go through four different phases, each one that has you eating a different overall volume of carbohydrates. The first phase will be the most restrictive in nature and is where most of the fat loss takes place. After that you move onto an ongoing weight loss phase and then a pre-maintenance phase, and then finally, you’ll finish off with the maintenance phase that you’re to use for life.

So what is the low-down on this diet and will it really work for you? Here are some of the important things to consider.

Pros:

• Allows you to eat some of the high fat foods you might be craving
• Tends to reduce hunger levels since very few carbohydrates are present
• Does cause rapid weight loss off the start due to water weight loss
• Encourages consumption of plenty of vegetables meaning users will maintain better overall health

Cons:

• Will be difficult to maintain an intense exercise program during the initial phases
• Some people will find carb cravings get the best of them
• May cause you to run a deficiency in certain nutrients found in carbohydrate-rich foods
• If poor food choices are made, this diet could end up being very high in saturated fat

Summary:

During the initial phase of the program you will only be taking in a total of 20 grams of carbs per day, coming from vegetable sources, which would classify this as an ultra low carb diet plan. Later on as you progress through it you will be adding more carbohydrates however, so that will make it a little easier to maintain.

Additionally, exercise is recommended and encouraged on the plan and you are to try and complete up to 30 minutes of physical activity 5-6 days a week. Note however that due to the very low carb nature of it, you won’t be doing high intensity training as that will be limited by the fuel sources of the diet plan.

Overall, this diet can work great for those who don’t especially crave carbohydrate rich foods and who are looking for a plan that will help to control hunger.

There’s no question that when done properly it can help you see good levels of fat loss and you will likely maintain this fat loss down the road.

Where To Buy:

Atkins Diet products are available to buy online at Boots.com.

If you spend some time watching weight loss shows on television, you’ve likely heard of Jillian Michaels before. Her weight loss system promises to be one that will really transform your entire lifestyle and get you on the path to better health.

The program takes a three-pronged approach where it is going to help you work towards improving your diet, increasing your exercise levels, as well as making sure you come to realize your personal fitness and health goals.

This program is all about customization as Jillian tries to match each and every person with a plan that is unique and specialized to them.

So is this the right choice for you? Let’s go over a few need-to-know facts so you can make the right decision.

Pros:

• Program does not attempt to be a quick fix but rather teaches you lifestyle habits that support a healthy weight
• No supplements or medications are required
• Jillian Michaels is well-known herself for her role helping others shed the weight – this builds credibility with her program

Cons:

• There is little support or guidance provided so some may have difficulty sticking with the plan
• Less technically skilled users may struggle to access all parts of the program as it’s all found online
• Program requires a complete lifestyle change so some people may find this rather difficult, but on the other hand, if they do make all the changes, better results will likely be seen
• Since no appetite suppressants are used, hunger levels may be higher on this plan

Summary:

The great thing about this program is that it does take a look at your entire lifestyle, not just one aspect of it. So many other programs will just target the diet or the workout program, but this looks at both and making sure there is good unity between them.

Because the program also helps you identify your own personal goals, this will serve to help keep you motivated to stay the course. It’s too bad the program doesn’t offer more ongoing support to its users as this can sometimes cause people to fall astray, but if you’re someone who is able to stick with a program without to much of a struggle, you shouldn’t find this to be too big of a disadvantage.

More importantly, if you do follow the program correctly and adopt the lifestyle changes that she discusses, you should find that you not only see good weight loss results but that you are easily able to maintain the weight loss over time.

So if you are ready for a complete overhaul and want to adopt a healthier way of living, definitely do give the Jillian Michaels program a try.

Where To Join:

Join Jillian Michaels online at her official website, www.JillianMichaels.com.

Good For: A relatively healthy approach to effective weight loss

Overview:

Any diet that claims you can lose 13lbs in just two weeks and lose most of that from your stomach is going to be popular; team it with images of sun-kissed Florida models in their bikinis, and the marketing is pretty spot on.

The good news, however, is that this diet might actually deliver. Originally created by a leading American cardiologist Arthur Agatston to improve the heart health of his patients, the diet went mainstream when he realised his patients were losing significant amounts of weight as well.

The diet claims to be flexible, easy to follow, practical and effective and is divided into three phases.

Phase One: The two weeks of phase one are intended to banish cravings and kick-start your weight loss, tackling your hankering for sugars and refined starches and stabilising your blood sugar levels. For this reason, most carbohydrates are banned with the emphasis on eating lean meat, chicken, low-fat cheese and eggs.

Phase Two: Is designed to induce steady weight loss with low GI foods such as whole grain cereal and pasta, fruits and low-fat milk slowly reintroduced. You are meant to stay on this phase until you reach your target weight.

Phase Three: Is called the lifestyle phase and is the key to maintaining your weight moving forward; as the diet says ‘this is how you’ll eat and live 365 days a year’. A wider variety of food is slowly introduced back to your diet in phase three.

If you suspect the South Beach Diet is very like the GI Diet, you’d be right. While the makers claim it isn’t a low fat or low carb diet, it does restrict carbohydrates, especially so in the first two weeks, before slowing reintroducing those with a low GI. (Glycaemic Index) – meaning these carbohydrates break down slowly and release glucose gradually into the blood stream.

The theory behind this is that foods with a high GI index (jacket potatoes, white bread, bagels) cause a swift increase in blood sugar; as insulin is released to deal with this, your blood sugar level then drops rapidly in response, leaving you hungry, lethargic and craving even more carbs.

Over time, this overeating will lead to weight gain and fat storage as the body becomes more resistant to insulin. An interesting point is that we will tend to put this weight on around our stomachs. Eating low GI foods, therefore, helps to avoid this and encourage weight loss.

Pros:

• The emphasis on ‘normal’ portion sizes – eating enough to satisfy your hunger and no more – should help to retrain a nation whose plates are getting bigger and bigger.
• Advised to eat three meals a day and snacks are encouraged.
• Rich in vegetables and fruits.
• Doesn’t leave out any major food groups, making it healthier than many other modern day diets.
• No need to count calories, points or weigh any food.
• Claims you can lose significant weight, with between 8-13lbs of weight loss in the first two weeks, and then 1-2lbs a week afterwards.
• Encourages avoidance of saturated fat, instead replacing it with healthier monounsaturates, such as nuts and olive oil.
• By reducing carbs with a high GI index, you also cut down on foods that have few other nutrients, such as sweets and white bread.
• Encourages a healthy lifestyle even after you finish the diet.
• Weight loss around the middle helps to reduce the danger or heart disease and diabetes.

Cons:

• Serious willpower is needed in the first two weeks as carbohydrates are dramatically reduced
• May leave you feeling weak and lacking energy during phase one.
• As phase one also severely restricts your fruit and vegetable intake, you may also be missing important vitamins and minerals.
• Cutting out carbohydrates in phase one also means you’ll be missing fibre and may suffer from constipation for a little time.
• Some dieticians warn that the initial dramatic weight loss is likely to be water based and may damage your electrolyte levels.
• The dramatic 8-13lbs weight loss in just two weeks is not considered a healthy weight loss amount.
• Fitness experts point out that it’s not possible to lose fat from one part of your body alone, such as the midriff, but your waist size will decrease with overall weight loss.

Checklist:

Alcohol: Not allowed during the first phase
Family Friendly: Once you’re beyond phase one, it should be.
Eating Out: Yes if you’re careful with what you order.

Exercise:

The South Beach Diet also offers the South Beach Diet Fitness Club, a fitness plan that has been developed with a certified Pilates trainer and can be done anywhere. Focuses on walking initially to get your heart pumping, followed by exercises (a video is included) to strengthen your core muscles.

Summary:

The good news is that this diet seems to be one of the good ones. While nutritionists express concern at the dramatic two week initial phase, with its severe carbohydrate reduction and associated weight loss, diets based on GI usually get the thumbs up.

This diet will require strict willpower to get beyond the first two weeks, but once you’re beyond phase one, it is less restrictive than many other diets out there. An additional benefit is that it also takes your heart health into consideration, thanks to its initial inspiration.

The South Beach Diet may well be one to try.

Where to Buy:

Sign up at the official website at www.SouthBeachDiet.com, or buy the South Beach Diet book at Amazon.co.uk.

Good For: Teaching you how to think like a ‘naturally thin person’ – and if the promotion can be believed, for dropping two dress sizes in four weeks.

Overview:

The Slim Girl’s Box of Secrets isn’t really like any other diet or weight loss tool you will have ever been on or used; it doesn’t encourage you to count calories or points, swallow pills or ban food. Instead it pledges to re-programme your mind and body to change your attitude towards food within hours.

The founder of the Slim Girl’s Box of Secrets is Ali Campbell, a professional therapist and master of the somewhat controversial Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). According to him, the system will retrain your body and mind and automatically regulate your food and fat intake; your body will only take in those calories it needs for energy and will compensate for any overindulgence.

The system comes with two DVDs, two CDs and a reference book explaining how everything works; the CDs work by subconsciously programming your mind to modify your attitude and behaviour to food, particularly those patterns of behaviour that resulted in cravings and overeating.

The trick is to modify your reaction to your ‘trigger’ foods – those foods that send you spiralling from your diet or healthy eating plan. Likewise, you will be taught how to only eat when your body is hungry as opposed to eating at pre-determined mealtimes.

Pros:

• No food is off limits: eat what you want when you want.
• If the promises can be believed, you can still enjoy your trigger foods – you’ll just find yourself eating smaller portions with little extra effort. Instead of eating a whole chocolate bar, you will only want to eat one or two pieces.
• Eliminates cravings.
• Tackles your emotional responses to food and promises no more comfort eating.
• Snacking is allowed; in fact, you can eat as often as you want, perhaps eating up to six or seven smaller meals throughout the day.
• You will learn to respond to your body and eat only when it is hungry, not because you ‘fancy’ something.
• Promises to cure you of overeating forever – pledging an end to Yo-yo dieting.
• Claims you will automatically stop eating when your body has taken in sufficient calories.
• No taking pills, supplements or doing strenuous exercise.
• Guarantees permanent weight loss.
• Your one-off payment also gives access to the members-only website with access to personal development experts, Campbell and fellow dieters on the forums.
• Learn simple movements you can do at home to speed up your weight loss.
• You don’t need willpower.

Cons:

• You will need to be open minded about NLP for it to work.
• Critics of NLP still argue that there is little empirical evidence that it does works.
• If you want to lose weight, you will still need to make healthier choices regarding the food you should be eating.
• The Slim Girl’s Box of Secrets, however, doesn’t give you very much information on what constitutes healthy eating.
• If you are someone who needs structured diet plans to follow, this is not for you.
• You will need to spend 30 minutes a day dedicated to following the programme – if you can’t spare that much time to read and listen to the material, it will not work.
• Weight loss may take a little while to kick in, so you will need to be patient.
• With a one-off fee of £49.95 (plus £8.95 postage and packing in the UK), this is a significant one-off expense.

Summary:

If you suffer from binge eating, this product may well be perfect for you. The most positive thing is that it addresses emotional eating and the triggers that encourage you to overeat; if it does as it promises and eliminates these completely, your relationship with food should be much healthier afterwards.

You may need to do some extra research on healthy eating alongside this package (as the information is not generally supplied), but overall if its promises are to be believed, this is a great system for getting back in touch with your body and will promote healthy weight maintenance for the future.

Where to Buy:

Buy from the official website at www.TheSlimGirlsBoxofSecrets.com

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