I think we all know that for overweight people to increase their heart health it’s advisable to lose weight. The best weight loss programs around today are….……. whichever ones work for you! Sorry, but there is no magic pill, Folks. In order to lose weight you need to be motivated and informed. Once you’ve got those two crucial ingredients you can find an eating plan that appeals to your palate.

The secret to making any weight loss program work is to make sure that it serves you (and not the opposite). You are the boss and not the program.

If you relinquish all control to “the diet” you will let “the diet” rule your life and tell you what (and how much) you may and may not eat. Eventually you will be sick of letting “the diet” determine what you do and do not consume and, if you are anything like most of the dieters out there, you will rebel and say “To heck with this diet. I want my food!!!”.

Find a food plan out there that you feel comfortable. Try it out. Fool around with it. Don’t choose something that is too prohibitive. For example, I tried the Cabbage Soup Diet once. I don’t know if you are familiar with it but it’s a 10 day diet where you can eat all the cabbage soup you want. Each day you eat something else for meals. One day is all bananas and milk. One day is steak and tomatoes. I dunno. By the time I got through a week of this I couldn’t LOOK at cabbage soup, much less eat it!!! Needles to say, I binged when I went off the diet.

In general, I find that the more I eliminate “bad” and “evil” foods from my diet, the more I wind up bingeing on them when I stop dieting.

One of the best weight loss programs is the South Beach Diet.

The South Beach Diet is a semi-low carb diet. The diet allows you to eat good carbs and fats. The first two weeks you eliminate all carbohydrates like bread, grains and fruits. This is meant to clean out your system. After the first two weeks you can start incorporating a bit of grains back in to your diet, like by adding one slice of whole wheat bread a day. No sugar is allowed at all on this diet. But, Dr. Agatston, the creator of the diet (and a cardiologist) allows you eat till you are full and doesn’t insist on weighing and measuring portions. Basically, on this weight loss program you can eat lots of vegetables, proteins (chicken, fish, turkey, lean meats), legumes (chickpeas is a favorite on this plan), olive oil and a bit of lowfat milk products. My experience with this diet is that after 6 weeks my triglycerides and cholesterol levels plummeted but I did start bingeing on sugar and carbs all of a sudden, after the intense deprivation period.

Atkins is another one of the best weight loss programs, in my humble opinion. Atkins is the quintessential low carb diet. You eat lots and lots of protein, which, by the way, really fills you up for a long time. Also, you do not have to limit your fat intake. Eggs, full fat yellow cheese, chicken, turkey and beef all have a place on this diet. Vegetables are also on the menu, although during the first two weeks you have to limit your carbohydrate intake to 20 grams per day or less in order to get into the state of “ketosis”, where the body starts to burn fat. It’s a bit of a pain to count carbohydrates, but you get the hang of it rather quickly. After the first two weeks you can be more liberal with the vegetables as you slowly increase your carbohydrate intake.

One of the beauties of Atkins and the state of “ketosis” it promotes, is that when you are in ketosis you almost don’t experience hunger at all. It’s truly amazing. Some people forget to eat! The downside of Atkins, in my opinion, is that by completely eliminating sugar and flour from the diet, it is once again a set up to binge on these foods afterwards. Physically and psychologically people start to crave the carbs after a while. This is the reason, by the way, that Atkins doesn’t really work for me.

What I do like about Atkins is the emphasis on proteins because I find that protein is very, very good for me. Atkins is especially good for women who have polycistic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), as women who have PCOS often have insulin resistance (and fertility difficulties) and a low carb diet is perfect for insulin issues. I suffer from PCOS and I actually got pregnant while doing Atkins!!

People who like alot of structure will probably enjoy doing Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers is based on a “points” program, where you are given an amount of points each day and they explain to you how many points each food is worth. Used to be you had to go to Weight Watcher meeting each week, weigh in and listen to a lecture. Today you can do Weight Watchers online. This is not a cheap program but alot of people enjoy it.

This was just a short article about the pros and cons of some of the popular “Best Weight Loss Programs” out there. More on diet and deprivation at a later date.

I will reiterate for the record, though, to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. The more we consume of the healthy stuff that grows from the ground, the less we will consume of the icky, processed foods that damage our health!!!

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