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Which Diet Plan is Right for You?
Diet is a four letter word. This certainly isn't an original observation. Just ask anyone who has dieted any time in their lives. Therein lays the problem with dieting, though. It is the wrong part of speech. It has become a verb when it should be a noun. A diet is the food that you eat. To diet should be a joyful thing, an indulgence in good, healthy, whole foods. Instead, it has come to mean restrictions and limits on food choices for the purpose of losing weight. Even worse, because we hang such high hopes on each new diet, the word has acquired its own distasteful baggage built of all the times those diets have failed us. If you've tried and failed time and again to lose weight on diet after diet, maybe the problem is not with the diet, but in choosing the wrong diet.

A Diet is a Weight Loss Tool.
Like most tools, it's important to choose the right diet for the job that you want it to accomplish. The diet that helps you knock off five pounds to look great for next weekend's date with the hot guy is not the same diet plan that will help you take off the last twenty pounds after the baby. Let's take a look at five of the most popular types of diet plans, with examples of each, and evaluate how well they work as a weight loss tool.

Weight Loss Companies (LA Weight Loss, Weight Watchers)
Nationally known weight loss companies like Weight Watchers and LA Weight Loss emphasize a balanced, healthy diet that is high in complex carbohydrates and low in fat, along with slow, steady weight loss and re-educating yourself about food. Most offer motivational support of one kind or another as part of the program, and offer recipes and food suggestions. They're ideal for taking off any amount of weight and keeping it off with sensible meal and portion choices. If you want to lose weight permanently, these are the plans for you.

Low glycemic index diet plans (South Beach, The Zone)
Both the South Beach diet and The Zone diet emphasize eating foods that are low on the glycemic index scale. While the science behind insulin resistance isn't proven, the structure of the diets can work well for many people. Both diets have "phases" that help you retrain your body and the way that you think about food. By the time you've completed working through the phases of the diet from the quick-start to the weight loss to the lifetime maintenance, many people will have learned how to eat healthy, wholesome foods in reasonable portions. These choices are good ones for the person who responds well to having a set variety of "okay" foods that can be expanded as time goes on.

High Protein Low Carb diet plans (Atkins Diet, Protein Power)
The Atkins diet and others like it teach that high calorie carbs are evil, and avoiding them is the key to losing weight. Like the South Beach and The Zone diets, the Atkins plan is built on phases of weight loss that range from rapid start to lifetime maintenance, and like the South Beach and The Zone, you'll lose weight if you stick to the diet. By the time you reach the maintenance phase, you'll be eating a healthy, whole food diet that is very similar to the diet you'll be eating with South Beach, Weight Watchers and The Zone. Like those diets, the key to losing weight and keeping it off is learning portion control and good food choices.