Are all dieting plans created equal?

We all have a diet; it is the amount of food we consume. The problem for many of us is in dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight. Should dieting be so complex that it gets over 11 million results when you type it into Google? The simple equation of how much food you take in, known as calories, minus the amount of calories you burn through your day (basal metabolic rate plus activity level) will equal your weight control. Bring in more calories then you burn and you gain weight, burn more calories then you take in and you lose weight.


Dieting plans started in the early 1900’s. Seems like you hear about new dieting plans all the time and everyone of us can name probably at least ten or more, and have tried at least a handful. It seems like they should all work based on what they try to sell us, but if they truly worked how come only about 5% of us will be successful at keeping the weight off according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention?


Which ones work and which ones fail? Well actually any dieting plans that has you take in fewer calories then you burn will work, remember the simple equation. If your dieting plan has you eating 500 calories of whatever food it is or supplemented with a pill or shot and you are burning 2,000 calories, you will lose weight. Yea dieting plan works! The reason most of these dieting plans fail eventually over time is that we don’t want to eat cabbage soup, take a pill or shot, walk around starving or some other strange idea the rest of our lives. So we eventually go back to our old eating habits: 3,000+ calories in and only 2,000 calories burned. We gain all the weight back plus more, the dieting plan fails! And for many of us it is time to pick a new dieting plan to go through the same cycle all over again.


To find a successful diet plan, eat a balanced diet that you can do the rest of your life. It needs to have the calorie intake needed based on your activity level to meet the weight you want to be. While the thought of losing 20 pounds in 2 weeks sounds great, we should all realize that gaining 20 pounds in 2 weeks would be very unhealthy, so maybe losing 20 pounds in 2 weeks isn’t so healthy either. Eating like the person you want to become will take more time to get you where you want, but it is much healthier and will allow you to be successful for life.