One of the most successful nutrition plans for weight loss to be introduced recently is the Jillian Michaels weight-loss plan. The plan accounts for three major factors which influence weight loss success in the long term: self, sweat and science. 

The plan recognizes that the process of losing weight is both a physical and a mental one, and aims to provide a gimmick-free plan for lifelong health and fitness.

 The plan recognizes that all the conflicting information about nutrition can leave many dieters feeling lost and frustrated, and breaks down exactly what you should eat to lose weight in a steady and sustainable way.

 The nutrition plan helps people to discover which foods are optimal for their body type and metabolic rate, the number of calories they should eat each day to ensure successful weight loss, recipes fully customized to body type that are delicious and easy to prepare, and tips and strategies for eating out without straying from your plan.

Today Show, nutrition expert Joy Bauer has formulated one of the simplest nutrition plans for weight loss available. Her highly popular diet is now an easy step-by-step online diet program which is fully customized for you to get the best possible result.

 The plan emphasizes plenty of healthy carbohydrates such as whole grains, lean protein, fresh fruit and vegetables – plus a range of delicious and satisfying treats that you can enjoy guilt-free. 

There are plenty of online tools to help you along the way, including a calorie calculator which will provide you with the nutritional information of thousands of foods to help you make diet-friendly choices; a meal planner and hundreds of healthy recipes to help you get started in the kitchen; and a food log for recording what you eat during the day so that you can track your weight loss properly. 

The program offers a free diet profile—participants take a quick and easy quiz and receive a personalized eating plan which is based on the principles of Joy's Food Cures.

The South Beach diet has been enormously popular recently, thanks to the endorsement of the diet plan by several high-profile celebrities, with more than 5 million copies of the book sold in the US alone. This is considered to be one of the best diets that work. 

Originally formulated by Dr. Watson, one of America's leading cardiologists, as a diet plan for his heart patients to improve cardiac health, it soon demonstrated its effectiveness as a weight loss plan. Like many recent nutrition plans for weight loss, the South Beach Diet is based on the principles of the GI diet. 

After an initial period of restricted carbohydrates, the diet slowly reintroduces foods which score low on the glycemic index, helping to break the cycle of carb binges and emotional eating which many dieters fall into. 

During this first phase, simple carbs such as cereal, white bread, sweets, cake, alcohol, potatoes, and bagels are banned. The diet instead emphasizes low-GI vegetables, lean meat and fish, nuts and olive oil. It is claimed that you can lose between 8 and 13 pounds within the first two weeks, and then a respectable 1-2 pounds every week after that.

If you choose to start a vegetarian diet for weight loss, you need to make sure that you are making healthy choices. By cutting out meat,, you can see dramatic changes in your waistline, but you want to do it the right way. If you change to a vegetarian diet plan and all you eat is bananas, you are not going to give your body enough fuel to keep you moving throughout the day.

Changing to a vegetarian diet for weight loss is a great idea; just make sure that you pay attention to what you are eating. This way you are sure to get all the nutrients you need. It is not just about cutting out red meats or fatty animal protein; it is about making lifestyle changes to help the way you look and feel.

Here are five areas of nutrition that you need to be aware of when cutting meat out of your diet. The average meat eater gets these vitamins and minerals from meat, so you have to keep an eye out for these things in other places.

1. Protein—no doubt you have heard people say to vegetarians, “how do you get enough protein?” There are actually many places to get protein that does not come from animal flesh. Protein helps to fuel our bodies and keeps our muscles working properly. You can get plenty of protein from other foods like legumes, nuts, whole grains, and soy or tofu.

2. Iron - again, people tend to think that vegetarians are all anemic because they don't get enough iron in their diet. This is something you need to pay attention too, but just like protein, there are many other places to get iron. 

Iron helps to keep your blood flowing and strong. You can get iron from entire grains, dark leafy vegetables, dried beans, and dried fruit. Keep in mind that your body needs vitamin C to properly absorb iron, so make sure that you are getting plenty of that in your diet as well.

3. Vitamin B12—the truth is, most people do not get enough of this vital vitamin in their diet. Vitamin B12 can help with the production of red blood cells. This can dramatically affect energy and mood. 

There are only a few non-animal related places where you can get vitamin B12; dark and leafy vegetables are one of them. You can also find this vitamin in eggs, cheese, and other dairy sources. If you are cutting back on dairy, you might want to consider taking a supplement.

4. Calcium—this mineral keeps bones strong as well as teeth. Everyone knows that you can get calcium from dairy, but often vegetarians try to cut back on dairy products as well as other animal products. Dark green vegetables like kale, broccoli, and spinach all have high amounts of calcium in them.

5. Zinc—this is a lesser known mineral that people typically get from eating meat products. Zinc helps your body to create enzymes and, which help process protein in the system. On a vegetarian diet, you can get zinc from wheat germ, nuts, soy, and whole grains.

If you can watch the levels of all of these vitamins and minerals, you should be well on your way to a healthy lifestyle. Being a vegetarian means paying attention to the foods you eat and how much you are taking in to stay healthy.

Maintaining a healthy veggie diet means you need to understand the key principles of vegetarian nutrition. Healthy vegetarian or vegan diets are not complicated; however, you have to be aware of the main principles of good nutrition.

Properly planned vegetarian nutrition can far exceed the healthiness of most meat-based diets. Whilst a vegetarian diet plan may seem boring to many people, it definitely does not need to be dull! There are so many fabulous recipes that you can follow, especially some ethic dishes, which are renowned for their veggie and spicy ingredients.

One general misconception about vegetarianism is that their diet does not provide enough protein or iron. This absolutely need not be true. Legumes, beans, grains, soy, nuts, and seeds are great proteins sources. They also provide various antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fibers which are not present in a meat-based diet. So, a vegetarian diet can actually be much healthier.

A veggie diet specifically designed for athletes or bodybuilders should contain the correct levels of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, proteins and good fats. However like all kinds of dietary plans, if you are struggling with which type of vegetarian planner is good for you, you should seek help from a healthy vegetarian meal planner or dietician.

Vegetarian diet plans are a popular weight loss option, as many of the foods in the diet plan are low in cholesterol and fats. Anyone looking to lose weight needs to limit foods with high levels of bad fats and cholesterol, and therefore adopting a veggie diet planner will help to achieve this.

A good veggie meal planning system can benefit you in a variety of ways. Healthy vegetarian diet plans will be well-balanced with a whole range of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes. The plan should include a variety of foods in each food group, to be both balanced and to provide you with a load of recipe options!

If you avoid poor quality food and stick to eating many fresh fruits, veggies, legumes and grains, especially whole-grains, this will provide you with almost everything you need to stay healthy. However, even veggie diets can have high levels of bad fats if they are excessive in entire daily products, fried or fatty snack foods.

Many of the world's most popular diets are 90% the same and 10% different. It's that key 10% that they market and promote 90% of the time.

For example: Atkins Low-Carb Diet by Dr. Robert Atkins. It's great; it forces the body into Ketosis (for more weight loss and rid the body of sugars) for 6-10 weeks it works like magic for initial weight loss. 

Atkins Low-Carb Diet then brings you into a re-composition or reintroduction of carbohydrates for a longer, more sustainable lifestyle. The Atkins Low-Carb Diet is clearly a “DIET” not a Lifestyle program any more than body builder's pre-contest and off season diet is. 

Sure you will experience rapid amounts of weight loss (mostly water weight) but you will then dip into serious fat stores for energy and when you introduce the carbs you may bounce back up in weight (fat and water retention) again. 

The problem is that too many people only read the first half of the book and think they know the answer. That's when you can literally see that they are “off” their Atkins Low-Carb Diet kick, and the weight appears to fall back into place rapidly. 


The back half of the Atkins Low-Carb Diet Book will teach you to introduce the appropriate calories and right carbs into your lifestyle and that is where it is apparent that you will end up eating much more of a zone by Dr. Barry Sears or balanced diet philosophy with a 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein and 30% fat ratio.

The same goes with South Beach Weight Loss Strategy. Honestly, this one is more marketing and trend hype than anything as it is clearly a “balanced” eating lifestyle program.

 Really, it is darn close to Zone teachings right from the get go. What I do like about this is that there is a 2-week induction or detox diet strategy to get you started, then move into the balanced lifestyle program with massive weight loss results. 

Were you aware that South Beach is just one of the burbs in Miami, Florida and was recently (2009) ranked as one of the highest “unhealthy” and “unfit” cities in the United States? Man, everybody looks so good down there in the sun; they must be hiding the fat and sick people in the alleys and closets or behind desks and suits all day long. Dr. Agatston sure picked the right place to start a practice and a trendy, appropriately named series of books.

There is a lot to be said for each diet strategy in the world. The problem is this. They ALL work. Knowing which one works, at the right time in your life, when you are at the right body composition and effectively selecting the appropriate program to follow at that specific point is a daunting task. 

In fact, it is downright painful and can only be done in a trial and error format which leaves you frustrated, confused and often times a skinnier fatter version of your former self or with no energy to even bother trying the next hot diet that Oprah Winfrey suggests will work for you. 

Have you ever noticed how Oprah has bounced up and down the scales and from diet to diet (more on that another time)? Literally, she has a hot new diet every year (she has followed Zone, South Beach, Atkins, and many other diet programs over the years) and “this is finally the one that's going to work for you”. 

They ALL work, short term, but the end game knows which weight loss diet strategy will work at the appropriate time in your life, how and when to implement it and sustain that for life.

How can you select the appropriate weight loss diet strategy at the right time for the right reasons that will work for you? That is the toughest question you are going to have to face as weight loss and diet information is rampant and leads to confusion with complicated rules, and ends up being way too consuming for many to embark on. 

Heck, even nutritionists are wrong from time to time or are branded and following the trends not the science and proven theories of their own (people lie, not numbers, pictures, and weight loss results).

 

The best answer I can suggest is to get a professional coach, a full-time nutritionist, and an educated trainer or spend years, months, and thousands of dollars going back to school and become the nutritionist and weight loss diet pro for your family. 

The other solution is found some already done-for-you meal plans with a tool that will help you pinpoint what weight loss and diet strategies are right for you at what point in your life to accomplish your weight loss and lean muscle building goals. That is the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to start getting the results you want.

 Oh, yeah, I also propose following a nutritional coach on Twitter, Facebook, blog or some RSS type of thing and work with just 1-2 theories not following every nutritionist and kamikaze body builder playing Russian roulette with your health.

Start by just adding 1-2 tasks a week. Try these 5 simple tips and use it as a checklist. Just wait and see how you do in the next week:

Cut obvious sugars out of your diet

Replace obvious and not so obvious sugars with fruits and veggies in your weight loss plan

Stop drinking your calories—yeah that means the triple café latte has to go… well just scale it down a bit, start with skim milk or non-fat if you must have the triple café latte

Increase your water intake—its calorie free, hydrating, satisfying, increases fat burning and protein synthesis—all good stuff

Eat smaller meals and snacks more often—the same calories spread out will yield a slightly lower fat storage and that too is good for the body, mind, and weight loss

(I bet you can lose 3-5 pounds this week, just trying these simple tips in your diet)

Enjoy these first steps to a new you and have your own empowered success story.

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