Famous Diets and How They Work
Dieting and Weight Loss

If you want to lose weight, you have probably heard of these famous diets. Many people swear by them. We wanted to know what makes them different, and how they work.

If you want to lose some weight, you look for the best diet, a diet that works. You could choose a quick fad diet or a starvation diet to lose weight for a few weeks. But during the first week of a fad diet, the pounds you lose are the result of water loss. You are likely to regain the weight as soon as you start eating again. For long term weight loss, a diet that takes weight off and keeps it off, there are better options than fad foods. In any case, you also want a diet that meets your nutritional needs, one that teaches you about good food, and one that helps you change your eating habits. Here are several famous diets that really do work, The Atkins Diet Revolution, Dr. Phil's Weight Loss Solution, Dr. Perricone Weight Loss Diet, South Beach Diet, and Dr. Andrew Weil

The Atkins Diet Revolution

What Is the Atkins Diet Revolution and how does it work? If you like meat, ice cream and rich foods, the Dr. Atkins weight loss diet will be your favorite diet. The famous Atkins Diet steers you away from carbohydrates, and toward protein. This diet includes steak, bacon and cheese, and other popular foods. His program is based on the fact that if you don't eat a lot of carbohydrates, the body will use its own fat for energy. This metabolic process is called ketosis.

The Atkins New Diet Revolution is a phenomenal best seller, along with his other books. When you begin, the Atkins Diet rules out almost all carbohydrates. After a few weeks, the diet offers a more livable regimen. You never feel hungry with Atkins, because you can eat as much as you want of many foods. Some medical conditions improve on the Atkins Diet, but check with your own physician first, particularly if you have cardiac or cholesterol problems. I personally know people who have had great success with the Atkins Diet. They have lost the weight and kept it off through the years.

Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Solution

Phil McGraw, PhD, the psychologist, television personality and best-selling author, needs no introduction to most of you. As a psychologist, his approach to diet and weight loss is to focus on the psychological aspects of over-eating, emotional eating, impulse eating, and poor food choices. Dr. Phil can help you change yourself from the inside out, so that you reach your ideal weight and find peace and satisfaction in your life. His famous diet book The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom stays on solid ground, recommending nutritional foods and an exercise program to get you started. He wants your diet to include high-yield foods, foods that supply a lot of nutrients in relatively few calories.

Dr. Phil spent eight years counseling overweight people how to change their eating habits. He explains how to substitute good habits for bad habits and make them stick. He also recommends that you use a support circle of like-minded people to help change your bad eating behaviors. With his program of habit modification, the encouraging case-studies, and his personal motivation tools, many people have abandoned a lifetime of bad eating habits and reached their ideal weight.

The Perricone Weight Loss Diet

Dr. Nicholas Perricone is a physician and a board certified dermatologist who taught at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. He is well-known from his best-selling books, particularly The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet: A Simple 3-Part Plan to Lose the Fat, the Wrinkles, and the Years. He explains the Perricone diet on his PBS television shows, and appearances on Oprah. The Perricone diet includes foods with protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants. On his diet you can eat wild Alaskan salmon and other fish, turkey, eggs, yogurt, many kinds of vegetables and fruits, avocados, olives, whole grains, beans, green tea, healthful spices, and lots of good water.

Dr. Perricone was the first diet specialist to emphasize the inflammatory effects of some foods. These are foods with a high-glycemic index, the foods that cause a sharp spike in your blood sugar. The inflammatory, high-glycemic foods include alcohol, most breads, flour, beef, fruit juice, pasta, rice, soda, and particularly sugar. These high-glycemic foods are excluded from his diet. Instead, his diet includes more cold-water fish, fruits and vegetables. An exercise program and nutritional supplements are also suggested.

Dr. Perricone is famous for his emphasis on anti-inflammatory foods. He was also one of the first nutritionists to focus on the benefits of the superfoods, wild salmon, berries, and so on. A side benefit of the Perricone diet is that when inflammation is reduced, you actually look younger and the aging process is slowed. The Perricone Promise says that when you decrease inflammation in the body, you improve your metabolism, lift your mood, reduce the risk of disease, and you lose weight.

The South Beach Diet

The famous and popular South Beach Diet was created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist at Mt Sinai Cardiac Prevention Center. He calls it the Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss. The jumpstart introductory phase of the South Beach Diet restricts carbohydrates, particularly those with a high-glycemic index that cause a spike in your blood sugar. The doctor thinks that we are "carb crazy." On the South Beach Diet, potatoes, fruit, bread, cereal, rice, pasta, beets, carrots, corn, and highly-processed carbs are avoided. There are also limits on beer, wine and alcohol. But it is not strictly a low-carb diet or a low-fat diet. However, the suggested portion size may seem smaller than you are used to. Snacking is encouraged so you don't feel hungry. The rules are easier in the second stage and the third, lifetime, stage. The South Beach Diet does meet your need for good nutrition, without counting calories.

The South Beach Diet Supercharged, also by Dr. Agatston, is the updated version of the South Beach Diet. It offers you a more flexible diet with some additional foods, and it puts extra emphasis on exercise to boost your metabolism. The diet introduces interval training along with high-intensity exercise for additional weight loss. The South Beach Diet Supercharged also has case studies, advice, new recipes and new menus.

Dr. Andrew Weil and the Mediterranean Diet

If I could recommend only one lifestyle diet, I would tell you about Dr. Andrew Weil. Dr. Weil brought the Mediterranean Diet to public attention in his best-selling books and his television series on PBS. As a physician who teaches at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, Dr. Weil provides healthy guidelines for a long-term eating plan. He recommends the Mediterranean diet, the style of eating in Greece, Italy, Spain, and southern France. His diet includes lots of unrefined carbohydrates, like whole grains, brown rice and vegetables. Fat in the Weil diet comes from good fats that provide omega-3 fatty acids, including olive oil, salmon, flax seeds and nuts. Protein comes from beans and soybeans, as well as small amounts of meat. His helpful books provide motivation, recipes and medical encouragement. His personal anecdotes and worldwide travel experience make Andrew Weil's books good reading, too.

I hope life brings you much success.
I wish you a very happy day.

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