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If you are getting married soon and are looking for a wedding weight loss plan, you are likely wondering what kind of diet is right for you. Most brides worry about their weight before their wedding and spend a lot of time and energy trying to lose weight before the big day. If you are searching for a wedding dress diet, consider a few things before jumping into a weight loss program.

With so many weight loss plans available, it can be difficult to find a plan that really works, without complicated calorie counting, vigorous exercise programs, and stringent guidelines. While many diet plans will work as a wedding diet, some diet programs are too complicated and time consuming.

A good wedding day diet will not starve you or advocate stimulant use. In fact a good wedding diet plan will teach you all about proper nutrition. Trimming your calorie intake and eating the right foods, combined with moderate exercise, will help you to lose weight fast.

Low fat diets are not always a good choice. Low fat foods are low in fat but can be loaded with calories. You may be eating more calories on a low fat diet than you realize. Cutting calorie intake is the best way to begin a weight loss plan. Fewer calories combined with a consistent active lifestyle will give faster results.

Salad diets are not a good idea if you want to lose weight. Eating a lot of salad has two downfalls. Salad will not satisfy your appetite and hunger for very long. In fact, within an hour of eating a salad you may find yourself wanting to eat again. Salad dressings and toppings can have far more calories than the salad itself. Avoid eating a lot of salad for meals while on a wedding diet and eat a low calorie meal instead, this will give you consistent source of energy.

Low carb diets are one of the worst ways to lose weight, next to starvation. Low carb diets will make you miserable and can cause painful headaches. Carbohydrates are necessary for your body and avoiding them all together may have negative effects. Many people gain their weight back after low carb dieting.

While dieting, increasing your water intake has many benefits. You kidneys need water to eliminate toxins from your body. High protein foods break down into toxic chemicals that also need to be flushed from the body. Drinking more water will boost your metabolism and help you to feel fuller. Drinking too much water combined with starvation diets can cause dangerously low sodium levels. Balanced nutrition and adequate water will increase your weight loss and help you to realize it faster.

Many wedding diets promise to show brides how to lose weight for a wedding. When picking your plan, consider the overall cost and benefits of the diet plan. Good diet programs will not cost you a lot of money and will not require you to buy prepackaged food. You can make delicious food at home and control the calories that you eat without sacrificing taste.

Your wedding day diet does not have to be bland, boring, or expensive. You can lose weight for your wedding simply by practicing good nutrition, cutting 500 calories a day, and with moderate exercise.

A diet that is written only to be followed for a short time is called categorized as one of the fad diets. Another popular culture meaning for the term is a diet that becomes wildly popular for a period of a few months to a few years, and then fades into obscurity. Some of these fad diets include the cabbage soup diet, the Atkins diet, and the cookie diet.

Another name for these fad diets are food faddism. This refers to any form of food that becomes popular for a short period of time. Common aspects of these fads include:

- Some elements of the food are said to have miraculous properties.
- Some foods must be avoided because they have equally amazing powers, but that do bad things.

The Atkins diet displays the characteristics of one of these fad diets. In Atkins carbohydrates must be avoided because of their negative characteristics. At the same time, carbohydrates are the miraculous element — actually the lack of carbohydrates because it creates a metabolic state in which the body burns fat at an amazing pace. This diet had a number of short periods of extreme carbohydrate avoidance, followed by long periods of sustainable low carbohydrate eating. Unlike many fad diets the Atkins diet was designed to be something a person could stick to for a long period of time.

As with many have diets, Atkins popularity was extreme and short-lived. For a number of years the Atkins diet was everywhere, and everyone seemed to be following it . Every movie star, singer, and sports figure claimed to use the Atkins diet when they needed to lose weight. When Dr. Atkins died to superstardom of his diet died with him.

There are many risks associated with fad diets. Even a diet like the Subway diet, as first presented in the commercials, could have problems. At its center was a young man named Jared who had lost hundreds of pounds in only a year by eating Subway sandwiches. Jared’s diet was severe — going down to 900 calories a day from over 10,000. That could have killed him. Even so, the Subway diet when followed in moderation can work. Particularly because the diet included exercise — Jared walked 6 miles a day while losing the weight.

Be careful when taking on some of these fad diets. A healthy combination of reasonable diet and exercise in the long-term can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

There have been literally thousands of weight loss diets created and publicized over the years.  It seems like anyone can claim to have found a magic formula to remove excess pounds with little or no effort on the part of the dieter.  Unfortunately, the results aren’t always found to be consistent, or even reasonable. In searching for the best diets, you should look for one that is nutritionally sound, incorporates good lifestyle changes such as exercise and upping water intake plus is simple enough that it can be easily followed by almost any person in any eating environment.

South Beach Diet

One of the most popular weight loss diets is the South Beach Diet.  It was developed by noted cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston during the early 2000s with the assistance of nutritionist Marie Almon.  The development of the diet was in response to the difficulties of Dr. Agatston’s patients to stay on the typical low fat diet prescribed for heart patients. The doctor found that his patients were not having the expected results from these diets.  Dr. Agatston initiated additional work in defining good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates.  The list of foods that are preferred for cardiac health and weight loss is known as the glycemic index.

Atkins Diet

The Atkins Diet is one of the earliest of the weight loss diets.  It was publicized by Dr Robert Atkins, an overweight physician when he needed an effective weight reduction plan for himself. It is a well publicized low carbohydrate, high protein diet.  Over the years, the diet plan has undergone significant modifications to improve its nutritional soundness. The basic premise of the diet is that it is not fats that cause obesity, but the increased consumption of refined carbohydrates. The negative feature of this diet appears to be that it is boring.

Mediterranean Diet  

Dr Walter Willett is credited with developing this diet in the mid 1990s.  The features of the Mediterranean Diet–one of the weight loss diets considered modern–include consumption of a fairly low level of saturated fats among other features.  Fresh fruits and vegetables, a moderate amount of wine, fish and seafood, and limited red meats are all features of the Mediterranean Diet. In short, it is a typical eating pattern for peoples living in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. These peoples tend to live longer and have a lower rate of cardiac disease than other peoples in the United States.

Pritikin Diet

Dr Nathan Pritikin is another creator of weight loss diets during the 1980s and 1990s.  The focus of this diet is the consumption of minimally processed foods and incorporating a healthy dose of exercise into your daily life. The diet encourages the individual to use fruits, vegetables, legumes such as black beans and pinto beans, and whole grains.  Protein is gained by the use of seafood and lean meats. Detractors feel that the diet is much too strict for most individuals so it is less popular than some of the more trendy diets. 

Why are Fad Diets Bad?

Many people are surprised that fad diets aren’t recommended when they appear to produce good results. There are many websites on the internet which claim to provide effective weight reduction in very few days. This kind of weight reduction is temporary. It is almost 90% water which returns to your body when it gets hydrated again, which happen otherwise cause severe health complications.

Some other fad diets which are less prominent crash diets, have outrageous claims and are just over hyped. They tend to be effective for some time, and is usually huge money making venture for its inventor in product sales. In some best cases, there are good diet programs which will help you achieve your weight loss goals, but you may have been able to get that from your doctor, for free. In worst cases, these fad diets will prove to be too difficult to follow and you will abandon them after a week.

Disadvantages of Fad Diets

1. Fad Diets, which promise fast and easy weight reduction, are normally based on consuming more of a certain food type and none of others. In this way, you will not obtain the benefits of a balanced diet. You are sometimes recommended to take supplements, but some of these supplements are not taken by the body, unless they are consumed along with food that your diet has removed. After a couple of weeks, you will start developing deficiency due to malnutrition.

2. Often, Fad diets are boring and involve many restrictions. The enthusiasm of the idea will vanish after a day or two, following which your cravings will increase and make you break the diet. Finally, it may make you feel guilty that you were not strictly following the diet.

3. Most of these fad diets don’t follow the instructions given by the American Heart Association and other such bodies for nutrition levels in food. These diets may suggest high fat and low carbohydrate foods which will ultimately result in heart problems. They may say that the diet should be followed only on a short term basis. But if you don’t achieve your goal plan by then, you will either tend to continue with an unhealthy plan, or stop and regain the weight you lost.

4. Most fad diets don’t supply your body with the necessary amount of fresh fruits and vegetables and your diet program does not give you the diverse food supplements that you require.

5. Weight loss programs that are quick are only temporary, short lived solutions and will not have any permanent effect on your eating habits. Producing permanent change is the only solution to remain at the targeted weight once you have reached it. Fad diets are yo-yo cycles of quick weight reduction and equally rapid weight gain. Such an effect is bad for your health as well as your self esteem and you would have been better off staying overweight.

No matter what the publicity materials say, fad diets will not assist you on a long term basis. The ideal way to produce sustained weight loss is by eating a varied and properly balanced diet, avoiding high calorie foods, exercising regularly and most importantly, by avoiding fad diets.

There are so many fad diets out there these days that attract people with there fast weight loss and celebrity lifestyle image. The fact is that nearly all of these diets only really offer short-term weight loss solutions and can be extremely unhealthy. Iv’e put together a list of 5 popular fad diets – along with reasons NOT to try them!

Detox Diet
Claims to lose a stone in 10 days, defeat cellulite, give glowing skin and no more bloating. This diet is meant to compliment other detox methods such as massages, colonic irrigation, saunas, fasting etc. Food such as fish, meat, eggs, dairy, wheat, salt, sugar etc are banned, while fruit, veg, beans, seeds, nuts are allowed. This results in a lack of nutrients, lowered immune system, a temporary weight loss, mainly water. It can lead to yo-yo dieting, nausea, sickness and headaches. It is said to causes food cravings, resulting in eventually giving up! It can also cause eating disorders and there is no good evidence of it actually working!

Low Carb / Atkins Diet
The aim of low carb diets is to force the body to use its own fat as its main energy source. This produces something called ketone bodies to fuel body parts that can not use fat as an energy source such as the brain and red blood cells. This puts you in a state of ketosis – resulting in smelly breath and side effects like fatigue and nausea. These diets do produce short term results, which actually come from loss of muscle tissue and water. They are not a long term weight loss solution and are unhealthy if sustained.

Starvation Diet
Starving yourself is one of the worst diets that you could try. Ok, you may initially lose a lot of weight but the effect this has on your body is drastic! You will be extremely lacking much needed nutrition and this will lead to fatigue, lack of sex drive and hormones, sleep loss, possible hypothermia, poor concentration and judgement, depression, anxiety, personality changes, social withdrawal, your metabolism will dramatically slow down, you will lose organ tissue and muscles, you can get shakes, feel the cold more, and feel very week. Low calorie intakes actually slow down weight loss.

Hollywood Diet
This is basically a 24 or 48 hour ‘Juice Fast’ where you eat no food in this time. This diet has the same cons as the starvation diet. You are really just losing excess water in the body with this diet and it does’nt last long, you will soon put that weight back on. It is expensive to buy the juice, around $25! You will get no protein or iron in the body, and will be taking lots of sugar and carbs. Tastes good at first but soon turns very sickly.

Cabbage Soup Diet
This is a 7 day diet plan which supposedly offers a fast weight loss solution. This is a very short term solution and is not sustainable so is’nt a viable option for long term weight loss. There are a few benefits to this diet which include fast weight loss, a healthy beneficial change from eating junk food, and research has shown that cabbage helps to prevent cancer. However, the drawbacks do outweigh these benefits somewhat significantly. The soup is high in salt, lacking in good overall nutrition – low in protein, calcium, essential fatty acids, high in sodium and MSG, requires much will power as the soup tastes very bland and is extremely repetitive, gives you gas!, and most of all this is not a healthy sustainable solution to long-term weight loss. This diet will most probably make you GAIN weight as it has a very low calorie intake and you can get bloated!

There really is no substitute for a healthy diet and regular exercise if you want to lose weight and live an overall healthier and more active lifestyle.

Anyone who thinks of taking a weight loss program should know the different fat loss diets they could try. There had been a lot of different diets around but finding the right one can be difficult especially when one isn’t properly informed about the diets’ pros and cons.

The best way to learn more about the different fat loss diets is to see a nutritionist or a dietician. You can ask them about the best fat loss diet that will suit you. They could select and modify any diet to fit your physique and lifestyle.

Before going to any nutritionist, you should do a little research about the various fat loss diets around. Doing so can improve your determination in losing weight and increase the chance of a successful weight loss. Just be sure you are prepared enough to shed off a few pounds.

Here are three of the popular fat loss diets you may want to try:

1. The Atkins Diet. Created by American doctor Robert Atkins, this diet lets you stay away from processed food and flour-based products that have high carbohydrate content including fruits and fruit drinks. It suggests a low-carbohydrate food intake to boost the body’s energy and speed up metabolism. The good thing about it is that consumption of red meat and poultry is highly encouraged — high-protein dishes could replace low-carbohydrates food. Many think that Atkins diet increases the risk of heart attacks for its high-protein food requirements. This diet is a bit complex so make sure you consult a dietician about its proper procedures and health risks.

2. The South Beach Diet. This diet is simply a healthy food plan that consists of fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. With cardiologist Arthur Agatston as its pioneer, this fat loss diet strictly excludes meat and poultry in every meal. It allows you to eat as much food as you want but make sure they’re low-fat and all-natural. Like the Atkins diet, South Beach Diet sees carbohydrates as the perpetrator of weight gain and obesity. However, it doesn’t encourage its followers to eat cheeseburgers and steaks unlike the Atkins diet. Dairy products like butter and cream are also prohibited in this diet. Like all other diets, South Beach requires different stages to undergo and may take several months to actually see its results.

3. Morsel Diet. This diet is all about taking a small piece of your favorite guilty pleasure. If you want to loose weight but can’t afford to get rid your chocolate or pizza, then this diet is good for you. Morsel diet allows the consumption of cravings like burgers and fries but only in small amounts or “morsels.” However, it would reduce your appetite through controlling the amount of food you eat for every meal. This diet may seem liberating but it requires a nutritionist to plan a healthy balanced menu and a personal trainer to arrange a workout routine. In case you’re thinking of doing it, you might want to prepare a big budget for the high cost of hiring different health personnel and a gym membership.

Many people are confused about how low carb diets work. It doesn’t make sense to them that you can eat more fat and protein than is traditionally called for and still lose weight.

A low carb diet plan greatly restricts the amount of carbohydrates you consume, as compared with a traditional North American diet, or even compared with a low fat diet. While our bodies would usually burn stored carbohydrates for energy, low carb eating forces the body to burn more stored fat instead. When this happens, your body produces chemicals called “ketones”. Ketones result when your kidneys convert fat to soluble waste. Getting your body to reach this point is one of the goals of a low carbohydrate diet.

There is a scientific reason behind the development of this diet. Dr. Robert Atkins first introduced the concept of eating a low carbohydrate diet in the 1970s. He noticed that primitive people consumed a diet of mostly meat, vegetables and some fruit.

Because this diet was in existence for thousands of years before the development of agriculture, Atkins concluded that the reason most people had difficulty losing weight and keeping it off is that we are eating contrary to the way our digestive system is set up. In other words, our bodies do not support eating wheat, barley and other grains and sugars.

In the 1990s the diet seemed to be rediscovered and became known as the Atkins New Diet Revolution. Since the reemergence of the Atkins diet, other low carb diets have been developed that are variations of it. The Zone Diet, the Stillman Diet, the Hollywood Diet, the Ketogenic Diet and the South Beach Diet are all based on the idea of eating fewer carbohydrates. They all advise eating more protein and limited carbs and inducing the body to burn its own fat.

Low carb diet plans differ somewhat in the amount of carbohydrates they allow, but all advise cutting out all white or starchy foods. The most strict is the 20 gram per day carb limit of the initial stage of Atkins, plus some of the other diet plans. The 20 grams is generally derived from salads and non-starchy vegetables, plus the trace amounts of carbs in sauces, dressings and cheeses.

In the first stages of a low carbohydrate diet, dieters are not allowed to have any milk, fruits, grains, cereals, pasta, breads or “high glycemic index” vegetables such as potatoes, peas, corn and carrots. The missing carbs are replaced with ample amounts of protein.

This is a very low amount of carbohydrate when compared with the large amounts of pasta and grains advised by traditional low fat diet recommendations, so this diet has become quite controversial. Butter is also included, which is another reason for the controversy over low carbohydrate eating plans. The butter is recommended because fat slows down the absorption of carbohydrates into the body and helps to maintain an even blood sugar level.

The whole idea behind Dr. Atkins original principal is that it we gain weight in our Western world because our blood sugar levels are allowed to go too high by eating too much high starch food. Control the carbohydrate levels and you control weight much more easily. Much research has shown this to be true. Of course opposing research has been done too, so the controversy continues to some extent, although it is generally acknowledged by all now that the high carb recommendations of the past were incorrect.

The great difficulty of any severely restricted diet is that most people can end up regaining much of their lost weight because of difficulty adhering to the restrictions over the long-term. This can ultimately result in rebound weight gain and is the reason that the modified versions of Atkins diet have evolved.

The Atkins diet itself though, does gradually increase the amount of carbohydrates you consume as you complete your weight loss, to avoid the extremes of losing then regaining weight. Is it right for you?

As I was performing my research to uncover the top ten diets that work, I discovered that the diets that were reported to be the most effective, had several shared characteristics. Naturally, the opposite was also true. The least effective diets had much in common as well. The following will reveal the truth about diets that actually work.

I discovered that most of the successsful diets produced steady weight loss. It seemed that 1-3 lbs of weight loss a week was the “magic” number that kept dieters motivated and healthy. Any less than 1-3 lbs a week, and dieters quickly became discouraged. Any more than 1-3 lbs a week, and dieters reported a greater incidence of the weight returning.

The “balance” of built in motivation, and healthful nutrition, were two elements of the top ten diets that work.

For a dieter to be successful longterm, it is essential that they maintain a general feeling of well being. These feelings include sustained energy levels, and a tolerable level of hunger pangs.

Diets that actually work feature foods that a majority of people prefer. I discovered that many of them allow individuals to select from a wide variety of foods. The variety makes it more likely that dieters will be successful long term.

The more effective diets also offered dieters information on how to maintain their weight loss. Dieters had the opportunity to learn behavior modification techniques, and how to permanently change their eating habit.

It probably should be noted that the best diets featured NO drugs or pills. In fact, all the diets included in the top ten diets that work, included wholesome, nutritious foods.

The Idiot-Proof Diet
The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

The ‘calorie shifting’ model takes place because you eat every two and half hours. The theory is that because your body is consuming calories (energy) constantly throughout the day, it’s always in ‘burning calories’ mode instead of the ‘saving calories’ mode.

When you sign up for the diet, you get access to a diet handbook, an 11-day diet-plan and a diet calculator. You get to pick what foods you like to eat so don’t think that you’ll be tarving in this diet!

NutriSystem
The NutriSystem way of dieting is all about proper meal planning. People love this diet because it takes away the burden of trying to figure out what to eat during their dieting phase. You see, a lot of people actually get confused as to what they can eat when they want to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because there’s so much information out there and for every yay sayer, there is a nay sayer so it’s really tough to know what to eat.

However, with NurtiSystem, they do all the meal planning and portion controlling for you. You just need to sign up to any of their diet programs (e.g., Women’s Program, Men’s Program, Vegetarian Program, etc.) and order a multi-day (usually for 28 days) diet program.

After you choose your diet program, a menu is presented to you and you simply choose what you want to eat. The meals are then delivered to your doorstep at various intervals during your diet program.

The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is popular because the name alone conjures bikini-clad bodies! Add to that the fact that it was founded by a cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, then you have a sort of ‘doctor recommended, doctor approved’ seal on the diet as well.

At first glance, the South Beach Diet looks a lot like the Atkins Diet in the sense that it restricts carbohydrates during the initial phase of the program (there are 3 phases). The first phase (14 days) encourages ‘normal eating’ in the sense that you can pretty much eat whatever you want but you must NOT eat bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. Fruit is also not allowed. No sugar. No alcohol.

The second phase allows you to SLOWLY introduce these items back into your diet but at lesser levels that you consumed them before of course. The third phase is more about general maintenance.

Weight Watchers
Probably one of the longest running diet programs out there is Weight Watchers. It believes in the overall approach where food, exercise, behavior and support are addressed.

Weight Watchers is known for advocating a point system for foods. Using this system, one calculates the calorie intake of the foods he or she eats. The number of points you can have in a day varies depending on your weight. The beauty of the program is that there are no gut-wrenching food restrictions so you never feel deprived of anything. However, the point system teaches you how to balance your meals so that even if you indulge on one food item, you don’t go overboard and consume too much in a day.

One of the secrets to successful dieting it knowing what diet program to follow; so apart from the above, do check out other diets too before you settle on the diet that suits you.

I must confess that I have always been a fan of low carb diets that work. My personal training clients are constantly coming to me for advice on diets, and frequently I will suggest a low carb diet. Unfortunately, some of them don’t heed ALL of my directions while on the diet. The result being that they experience frequent plateaus, and inconsistent weight loss. I generally discover that most of them are making this one big mistake!

During the course of just about any diet, there are periods of time when an individual is following the plan, and not losing any weight. These frustrating periods of time are commonly referred to as a plateau.

Most plateaus are caused by fluid retention, particularly if the intake of sodium (salt) IS NOT reduced while on the diet. Water is quite frequently retained right beneath the surface of the skin.

On most low carb diets that work, dieters tend to lose a great amount of water weight during the initial stages of the diet. Generally, during the first 2 weeks or so. The reason for this fluid loss is that carbohydrates act as a “dam” for body fluids. When carbohydrates are drastically reduced, the body “dumps” water that had been retained in body tissues.

However, after this initial loss of water weight, dieters notice that their weight loss dramatically decreases. In fact, their weight may increase a bit! This is caused by the body’s need to take back the water that was lost during the initial stages of the diet.

The mistake that these dieters generally make is not drinking enough water when starting the low carb diet. This is also true of low carb diets that work. Dieters MUST drink at least 8, full glasses of water daily, to curtail fluid retention.

It is interesting that consuming more water PREVENTS water being held. This occurs because the kidneys are working “overtime”, constantly releasing water.