The Subway Diet was invented accidentally by Jared Fogle, a student at Indiana University, who dropped from 425 pounds to 180 pounds in just one year in the 1990s. It began to be popular in 2000 after the Subway food chain discovered Jared and based an advertising campaign around his diet.

How Jared Fogle Lost 245 Pounds In One Year

Jared was in his junior year when his weight reached its all time high. Like many young men in college he ate a lot of junk food, but unlike his friends he took virtually no exercise. He was told by a doctor that he risked serious health problems if he did not lose weight. He tried various diets without much success.

Then one day he discovered a Subway restaurant near his dorm. He tried a low fat Sub and liked it, so he began eating there twice a day. He would skip breakfast, walk to Subway for lunch, eat one low fat Sub with maybe some baked potato chips and diet soda, and do the same thing in the evening for dinner.

The Subway Diet consists of doing basically what Jared did. You take 2 meals a day at Subway and eat nothing else. You can choose one Sub from the ‘Eight For Six’ range which contain 6 grams of fat or less, plus low fat baked potato chips or other low fat side dish. You also have to drink water and do some exercise.

Why Does It Work?

It works because it is a very low calorie diet. Jared Fogle went from eating up to an estimated 10,000 calories in a day right down to around 1000 calories a day. This is half of the amount that a normal sized person of average height needs to maintain a healthy weight, so it is a major calorie restriction.

Another reason why Jared lost his weight so fast (it works out to almost 5 pounds per week) is all the walking that he did. After he reached around 300 pounds he began walking pretty much everywhere instead of taking the bus.

Any Negatives?

Most doctors recommend losing a maximum of 2 pounds per week, so it could be argued that Jared Fogle lost weight too fast for optimum health. However he did succeed in keeping his weight down and is still at a healthy weight 10 years later. He now works for Subway promoting healthy eating.

Without going into the detailed nutritional analysis of the eight Subs that you can choose from, it is unlikely that you would get your full vitamin and mineral needs met on this diet. However, it is not as easy as people think to get the RDAs of all vitamins and minerals. Eating only 1000 calories a day it would be difficult on almost any diet. You are also likely to be very hungry between meals.

Two of the major nutritional elements lacking in the Subway diet are vitamin A and fiber. Add a large portion of orange or red vegetables such as carrots or red bell peppers to boost your intake of these elements. If you eat them raw you will benefit from their vitamin C too. Adding these as snacks will help with the hunger problem.

Of course you should consult your doctor before going on any diet, but remember that many college students, even those who are not overweight, live mainly on junk food. The Subway diet may not be the healthiest diet you could have, but it is a lot healthier than what Jared was consuming before.

Always consult your physision before starting a diet.

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The South Beach diet is a popular diet developed by a cardiologist, Arthur Agatston of Miami. It was originally intended to help his patients avoid or improve cardiovascular disease, with weight loss as a secondary aim.

What Is It?

The South Beach diet is based around the idea that there are good and bad carbohydrates and good and bad fats. It does not count calories and you are expected to eat until you are satisfied, but you are restricted on what foods you can eat. It also rates foods according to their sugar content (the glycemic index).

‘Bad fats’ (mainly saturated fats and trans fats) are to be avoided because of their alleged contribution to heart disease, which has been widely researched. This means cutting down on high fat meats and dairy products, replacing them with lean meats, oily fish and olive oil.

‘Bad carbohydrates’ are the quickly absorbed high glycemic index carbs such as sugar and refined grains (white flour, white rice etc). They are replaced with whole grains and high fiber foods, plus fruit in limited quantities.

There are three phases to the diet. Phase 1 is the most restrictive, lasting 2 weeks. Almost all carbohydrates are avoided in this first phase, including fruit. At this point the diet may seem a little like the Atkins diet but this is only for a limited 14 day period. A person might lose 8-13 pounds during these 2 weeks.

More foods are added back into the diet in phase 2. You will stay on phase 2 until you meet your weight target, hopefully losing 1-2 pounds per week during this time. Phase 3 is a maintenance plan, more flexible still, that you can use when you are at your ideal weight.

South Beach encourages dieters to eat 6 times a day (3 meals plus 3 snacks) and to eat more non-starchy vegetables.

Why Does It Work?

The first phases probably induces ketosis in the same way that the Atkins diet does. In the absence of carbohydrates the body uses its fat reserves for energy.

Beyond that, the addition of more fiber into the diet is good for us. The standard American or Western diet often does not contain even the minimum of fiber. Fiber also helps us to lose weight because it is a bulky substance that is not easily absorbed by the body. It fills us up while containing very few calories.

This means that although you are not consciously restricting calories on the South Beach diet, you are likely to reduce your calorie intake automatically, just because you will be filling your stomach with bulky, low calorie foods.

Switching to a diet containing more vegetables is likely to provide more of the essential minerals than most people have in their diets right now. This also increases satisfaction so that we will stop eating sooner. Often, people overeat partly because on a high fat diet they cannot get the nutrients they need without consuming a huge number of calories.

Also, research has shown that eating frequent, smaller meals is often better for weight loss than restricting yourself to 2 or 3 meals per day. So there are many factors which make the South Beach diet work for many people.

Any Negatives?

Although there are vegetarian options, strict vegetarians and vegans may find the first two weeks difficult, as may people who have a very active lifestyle. There is not much emphasis on exercise in this program.

Artificial sweeteners are accepted and even recommended on the diet. Some of these have health risks in themselves and using them will keep you in the habit of having sweet tasting foods, so you are likely to still crave sugar and candy.

If you have been on the standard Western diet, your food costs might increase a little because healthy food tends to cost more. Replacing junk food with fresh vegetables can increase the grocery bill. However, you will probably save on items like candy and alcohol (a little red wine is allowed in the later phases, but that is all).

It has the reputation of being a faddy, celebrity-driven diet but this may just be because of the name and the hype that it has had. Overall the South Beach diet is a good healthy weight loss plan for many people.

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Consult your doctor before starting on the South Beach diet.

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The Scarsdale diet was published in a book called ‘The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet’ by Dr Herman Tarnower of Scarsdale, NY and Samm Sinclair Baker in 1979. Its popularity benefited from a storm of publicity in 1980 when Dr Tarnower was murdered by his long time lover, the headmistress of a well known girls’ boarding school.

The claim is that you can lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days.

What Does It Involve?

The Scarsdale diet plan could be described as a more nutritionally varied version of the grapefruit diet. Half a grapefruit is included every day at breakfast for the supposed ‘fat burning enzyme’ that it contains.

Dr Tarnower proposes a strict diet plan which you follow for 14 days. You then follow a less restrictive plan for 1-2 weeks before going back onto the diet plan for another 14 days if you need to.

Generally, it is a high protein, low carbohydrate plan but with fruit and 1-3 slices of protein-enriched bread per day. Breakfast is half a grapefruit and 1 slice of bread. Lunch may be fruit alone, or meat, fish or cheese with salad or vegetables. Dinner is meat or fish with vegetables. Bread is allowed at lunch or dinner some days.

Snacks are limited to raw carrot, celery etc. You may drink tea, coffee, diet soda and of course water. You can use ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, mustard and herbs.

No potatoes, corn, peas, beans (other than green beans) or lentils are allowed, and no pasta, rice or other grains except for bread when specified.

Why Does It Work?

This is a strictly calorie controlled diet. Most people will lose weight over the 14 days if they can stick to it.

The cyclical nature of the plan (2 weeks on, 1-2 weeks off) is said to optimize results because it prevents the metabolism adjusting to the lower calorie intake.

Any Negatives?

Most people will be very hungry on this diet and that will make it hard to stick to. Some people use appetite suppressants but these may have risks of their own. If you can keep to the plan, most of the initial weight loss will be water.

There is a heavy emphasis on lean meats with most of the calories coming from animal protein foods. It would be a difficult diet for vegetarians to follow. There is no scientific basis for the idea of a fat burning enzyme in grapefruit.

The cyclical style of the diet is also difficult for many people. There is a risk you will go completely off the diet at the end of the 14 days and regain all the weight.

It has been criticized for promoting yoyo dieting where weight is constantly gained and lost in a short time. This is generally considered bad for the health.

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Consult your doctor before starting on the Scarsdale diet.

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The raw food diet has become very popular as many people seek to eat in a more natural, healthy way. Some people follow it in order to lose weight but many people of normal weight also switch to eating raw food for health reasons. Some consider cooked food to be unnatural.

What Is Involved?

There are many forms of raw food diet. The following are a few examples:

Raw Vegan

Any raw food except animal products. Calories come mainly from fat (nuts, avocados) and fruit.

Raw Vegan - Fruit Based

Low fat version of the raw vegan diet, often described as 80/10/10 after Doug Graham who proposed that the raw vegan diet should consist of 80% of calories from fruit, 10% from protein and 10% from fat.

Raw Vegetarian

No meat or fish, but includes raw (unpasteurized) milk, cheese, eggs etc.

Primitive Raw

Includes raw meat and fish, but with strict rules about what meat is eaten, for safety reasons. May not eat soaked and sprouted grains or legumes, if following a paleolithic style diet.

What Foods Are Not Raw?

Many people are confused about the difference between foods that are eaten cold, and raw foods. The following foods are NOT raw:

- bread and any other food that has been cooked before you bought it.

- any food that has been pasteurized (including all dairy products unless marked raw or unpasteurized, all fruit juices unless freshly squeezed from the fruit, almonds from California).

- nuts that have been heated to extract them from the shell even if marked raw (macadamia, brazil, cashew). Nuts in shells are usually raw, as are out-of-shell unroasted filberts (hazelnuts), peanuts, pine seeds and non-Californian almonds.

- sugar, molasses, maple syrup, most commercial brands of honey.

- oils unless marked extra virgin.

- nut butters and tahini except from a specialist raw food supplier.

- almost all canned and processed foods.

Dried foods are raw only if they are dried at temperatures below 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius).

Some raw foodists eat foods that have been frozen, if safe. Others do not on the grounds that freezing breaks down the food in much the same way as cooking. Defrosted frozen fruit usually looks and tastes more like cooked than raw fruit.

Why Does It Work?

In most cases, the result of switching to raw food will be a reduced calorie intake, leading to weight loss.

Most forms of the raw food diet are very high in fiber so you will feel full with fewer calories. This is not necessarily true if you include a lot of high fat raw foods in your diet (nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut). If you go raw and are not losing, try reducing your consumption to 50g (2oz) of nuts/seeds or 1/2 avocado per day.

The raw food community argues that cooked food is unnatural and harder for the body to handle, causing weight gain and disease. Whether you will lose more weight eating raw food than you would if you ate the same food cooked, is not known.

Any Negatives?

Plenty! Nevertheless, people attribute some amazing health benefits to this diet.

A 100% raw food diet is notoriously difficult to follow on social occasions. In a restaurant you can usually ask for salad and fruit, but when visiting friends and family you may have to take your own food.

Nutritional requirements can be difficult to meet. You need to eat a lot of raw green vegetables, which some people find unpalatable. However, they can be blended with fruit to make green smoothies.

The vegan diet (cooked or raw) requires supplementation of vitamin B12. Vegan diets may not be suitable for small children.

Some versions of the diet are very high in fat. This can be a negative factor depending on your medical history.

A high fruit diet may be bad for people with diabetes and candida overgrowth. A combination of high fruit and high fat is definitely to be avoided if you suffer from either one of these conditions. Whatever your medical history, take medical advice before embarking on the raw food diet.

Some foods are dangerous if eaten raw. These include kidney beans and their sprouts, and unpeeled potatoes. Other foods can be deadly if contaminated, e.g. raw meat. Unpasteurized dairy products may cause food poisoning and should not be eaten by pregnant women or others at risk.

Some vegetables, particularly the brassica family (broccoli, cabbage etc) contain natural pesticides which may be dangerous in high doses but are destroyed or altered by cooking. However, the natural pesticide in broccoli has been shown to protect against cancer in many research studies, so some people are big fans of raw broccoli and include it in their raw food diet.

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Consult your doctor before starting on the raw food diet.

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The Jenny Craig diet is not so much a diet but a weight loss program that is based around special packaged food. The program operates out of weight loss centers around the world. These are run on a franchise basis - that is, the owner of the franchise is thoroughly trained in operating the program and is licensed to use the company name and sell Jenny Craig products.

What Can You Expect?

If you sign up with the Jenny Craig program you can expect to visit one of their centers to meet with a weight loss counselor. This will establish what your calorie level should be depending on your current build and the amount of weight that you want to lose. You will sign up to the program for a certain length of time or until you have reached your target weight.

You will then be advised on your nutritional program which will include the special food that you buy from them. You will return once a week to be weighed, buy more food and discuss your progress and any problems you are having.

If you do not live near a center or if you prefer not to have one on one sessions in person, you can take the counseling by phone and have the supplies delivered.

Why Does It Work?

This is a calorie controlled diet, which together with exercise should ensure weight loss if you follow it.

The weekly weighing session means that you have someone out there who knows how you are doing. You can also have phone calls with the counselors. Being accountable to someone in this way often helps people to lose weight or keep to any other resolution that they make.

Any Negatives?

Like all diets involving special food that you would not normally eat, it can be difficult to limit yourself to their meal choices and it is likely to be hard to keep the weight off afterward. On the other hand if you like not having to cook or think about what to eat, the prepared meals will suit you just fine.

The food is prepared with a fairly high sodium content and is not necessarily low on the glycemic index so it will not suit everybody. If you are insulin resistant or have high blood pressure or other special nutritional needs you may not be able to take the program. They do advise you to see your doctor before starting (as with all diet programs) and they give you an information sheet to take along.

Both the membership and the food that you need to buy can be expensive. Shipping is extra if you have the supplies delivered. You may be better off with a program that is based around regular food, such as Weight Watchers.

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Do find out what your costs are likely to be for food as well as counseling before signing up for the Jenny Craig diet.

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The grapefruit diet was popularized by movie stars as long ago as the 1930s. It is also known as the Hollywood diet and it is still followed by many people today.

What Is Involved?

It is a short term, high protein, low carbohydrate diet that you follow for 12-18 days. You must eat 3 meals a day plus 1 snack. Do not skip any meals. There is no published original version of the plan so it varies a little but this is an example menu plan:

Breakfast: 1/2 grapefruit, 2 eggs, 2 slices bacon, black coffee if wished.

Lunch: 1/2 grapefruit, large salad with dressing, unlimited meat.

Dinner: 1/2 grapefruit, unlimited salad or cooked red or green vegetables (except those on the banned list below), unlimited meat or fish.

Evening snack: 8 oz skim milk.

You can use butter and oil including frying the allowed foods if you want to. You must drink 8 x 8oz glasses of water per day. Apart from water and the breakfast time coffee, no other drinks are allowed.

The following foods are banned: starchy vegetables (potato, pumpkin, corn etc), peas, beans, nuts, seeds, grains, bread, cereals, sugar, and fruit - except grapefruit of course!

Why Does It Work?

The aim of the grapefruit diet is to get weight back to normal if you have a few pounds to lose. It accomplishes this by restricting calories for the 12-18 days of the diet plan. Despite the high fat content, most people will be eating far fewer calories than normal, so they will lose weight during this time if they stick to the plan. No high carbohydrate foods are allowed so the body will burn fat for energy in the same way as on the Atkins diet.

The original claim was that grapefruit has a weight loss effect in itself - that is, by adding half a grapefruit before each meal you would slowly lose weight even if you changed nothing else. People may say either that grapefruit contains a fat-burning enzyme or that it controls insulin levels, affecting the metabolism. This has not been proved by research so far.

Any Negatives?

Being a short term diet, it is not so useful for people who want to lose a lot of weight. It could start you off with good weight loss but when the 12-18 days are over, you will need another type of diet to move on to. At this point there is a risk you could go back to your old eating habits and put the weight right back on.

There is also a danger for people who just wanted to lose those few pounds, that they will celebrate with high carbohydrate meals when they reach the goal. Yoyo dieting could be the result. Yoyo dieting is strict dieting followed by weight gain, so the weight goes up and down very quickly. This is bad for the health.

The high saturated fat content may be dangerous for some people even in the short term.

See your doctor before starting any weight loss diet such as the grapefruit diet.

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The cabbage soup diet is a short term fast weight loss plan that claims you can lose 10 pounds in a week. Its origins are unknown but it seems to have come into circulation in the 1980s.

What Is Involved?

You eat unlimited cabbage soup for a week, plus certain other foods. A typical plan goes like this:

Day 1: cabbage soup and fresh raw fruit (except banana and coconut).

Day 2: cabbage soup, non-starchy vegetables and 1 baked potato.

Day 3: cabbage soup, fruit (except banana and coconut) and non-starchy vegetables.

Day 4: cabbage soup, skim milk and bananas (maximum 8).

Day 5: cabbage soup, tomatoes, beef (maximum 20 oz).

Day 6: cabbage soup, non-starchy vegetables, beef (unlimited).

Day 7: cabbage soup, unsweetened fruit juice, non-starchy vegetables, brown rice.

You can have as much of the named foods as you want, except where a portion size is specified. You can eat as often as you want. You must not use any oils, salt or anything else that is not on the list. No drinks except water.

To make cabbage soup, just boil plenty of cabbage for 10-15 minutes in enough water to cover it, remove from the heat for a few minutes and blend with a hand-held blender. On days when you are allowed other vegetables you can add onions, herbs, celery etc.

On beef days you can cook the beef in the soup if you want, or buy steak and grill it, or toss ground beef in a frying pan in a little water.

Why Does It Work?

Drastic calorie reduction for the 7 days of the diet will produce weight loss, although much of the loss is due to water.

To lose one pound of fat you have to eat 3500 fewer calories than the amount that would maintain your weight. This means that to lose one pound in a week you would have to eat 500 calories per day less than your maintenance calorie level. To lose 10 pounds of fat in a week you would have to eat 5000 calories per day less than your maintenance level. Since most people’s maintenance level is a lot less than 5000 calories a day, this is impossible. That is how we know that a large weight loss in a short space of time is mainly water loss.

However, even water loss will result in you looking thinner. Water retention makes us look bloated. So if you do not go back to eating a lot of salt and processed foods, you may be able to maintain the loss.

Cabbage is a low calorie, high fiber food so it will make you feel full without weight gain. This makes it easier to stick to the diet. It is also a very nutritious food. It contains a surprising amount of protein as well as minerals and vitamins.

The diet follows food combining principles, not mixing starches with proteins or fat with fruit. This is claimed by some people to make the food easier to digest and help you get the maximum nutrition from it.

If we had no imported food we would tend to eat a lot of the same vegetables and fruits for a time while they were in season, so this may be a very natural way to eat.

Any Negatives?

The main problem, as with all short term diets, is that most people put the weight right back on again as soon as the diet is over. You will need to change your eating habits to keep it off, and you will need another diet plan to follow afterward if you want to lose more than 10 pounds.

You may become very tired of cabbage soup, although if you have never had it before, you will probably be surprised how good it tastes (especially when you are hungry). Changing the permitted foods each day provides some variety but not nearly as much as we are used to. Boredom is likely to be a problem.

It may be difficult to follow this diet if you need to take your lunch to work and do not have anywhere to warm your soup. You will want more than you can fit in a vacuum flask. Some days, you could eat fruit during the day instead. On other days this is not possible.

It is possible that eating huge quantities of cabbage may have some negative consequences for health. This should not be a problem in 7 days but staying on this diet any longer is not recommended.

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You should see your doctor before starting the cabbage soup diet or any other weight loss plan.

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The blood type diet was developed by Peter D’Adamo in his book ‘Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type’. D’Adamo is a natural health practitioner who considers that the most important factor in determining a person’s ideal diet is their ABO blood type.

What Does It Involve?

The diet considers that food lectins react differently with different types of blood, some creating antigens which cause a reaction as if to an allergen or invader. Therefore you are advised to consume more of some foods and avoid others according to whether you have A, AB, B or O type blood.

Group O, The Hunter: this is claimed to be the oldest blood type. A high protein diet is recommended.

Group A, The Cultivator: more vegetables, very little red meat, would suit a vegetarian diet.

Group B, The Nomad: most foods including dairy. The other blood groups are not recommended to eat dairy products.

Group AB, The Enigma: intermediate between A and B.

On top of that, there is a long list of foods that should not be eaten for each blood type because of the action of the lectins.

Does It Work?

D’Adamo claims to have around a 70% success rate in terms of improved health conditions and/or weight loss. However, these results do not come from independent research but are self-reported, e.g. people who respond to polls. There is no way of tracking all of the people who have read his books and tried the diet, so there is no analysis of their results. The diet does not seem to have had any structured clinical trials.

Where results are good, this may be because the diet happens to suit those people or it may be that simply becoming more conscious of what they eat and avoiding certain foods helps them to lose weight and regain health.

Only around 10% of the population have group B blood, so 90% of people will be in the other groups where dairy products are not recommended. If you read the packaging you will be surprised to see how many processed foods contain milk in some form, including milk solids, lactose and whey. Avoiding dairy products will automatically cut out a lot of the fat, fast food and junk food in the average person’s diet, and can result in weight loss by itself.

Any Negatives?

D’Adamo has been heavily criticized for the lack of structured research to back up his ideas. Virtually all independent research suggests that there is no link between blood type and diet.

Additionally, many scientists consider that lectins in foods do not act in the way that extracted lectins might act. That is, when they are included in food they do not set off a hostile reaction with antigens or antibodies. Research has not found a link between blood type and food allergies either.

If you like a diet with a lot of rules that sets out clearly what you can and cannot eat, this may suit you, but you have to be prepared to work with the complexity of it.

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Some versions of the diet will not suit some people and as always you are recommended to discuss it with your doctor before starting on the blood type diet.

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The Atkins diet is a low carbohydrate diet developed by Dr Robert C Atkins in the 1970s. Dr Atkins wrote many books and did refine the diet later, but in the beginning it focused on cutting out almost all carbohydrates regardless of where they came from. It is also known as the high protein diet, because in the absence of carbs we have to get our calories from proteins and fats. It is set up in structured phases, with the first being the most restricted, as is normal for most diets. Some people skip the first phase (the induction).

Why Does It Work When we are eating a lot of carbs, the sugars in them require the body to produce a lot of insulin. These levels of insulin help the body to convert a lot of food into fat in the form of triglycerides. This is stored in the body, making us gain weight. However, if there are no carbs available, the body will switch to a system called ketosis where it can create energy directly from fats. This creates ketones which suppress the appetite (we quickly feel we have eaten enough, or do not feel very hungry and use our fat reserves for energy). In order to bring on ketosis we have to eat less than 40 grams of carbohydrate in a day. To give you an idea of how little this is, the average person on a standard Western diet consumes around 300 grams per day. 40 grams is about 2 small bananas, or 3-4 slices of bread, or less than 1 cup of cooked brown rice. For people who like meat and dairy foods the Atkins diet can be a refreshing change from other weight loss programs. This can help motivate you to stick with the diet.

Any Negatives? You have to get used to a whole new way of figuring out what to eat. It involves taking account of the number of grams of carbohydrate that are in everything. The diet can be boring and many people do not get enough variety or essential nutrients while following it. This can be overcome by making an effort to include more vegetables and/or supplements, but Dr Atkins does not tend to focus on these points as much as he might. Many Atkins dieters eat a lot of saturated fat which research has shown can contribute to heart disease and other conditions. It seems likely that some people’s bodies do better on a low carb, high protein diet, but other people’s do not.

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Check with your doctor before starting and have your cholesterol levels monitored regularly while you are following the Atkins diet.

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Here is our list of top diets. Click on the title of each of these popular diets to see more details including what the diet involves, if and why it works, and what are its bad points, if any.

Atkins Diet

The well known high protein diet developed by Dr Robert C Atkins. No high carbohydrate foods.

Blood Type Diet

A diet developed by Peter D’Adamo where you select from foods that are said to be right for your blood type (A, B, AB or O).

Cabbage Soup Diet

On this 7 day diet you can eat unlimited cabbage soup, plus specified other foods at different times. Generally this diet follows food combining principles and has some days of high protein and some of high carbs. Filling up on high fiber cabbage means that you should not go hungry. Claims you can lose 10 pounds in a week.

Grapefruit Diet

This diet has been around since the 1930s when it was taken up by Hollywood stars. It is a high protein, low carbs, low calorie diet that you follow for 12-18 days. Includes half a grapefruit at every meal, claimed to contain a fat burning enzyme.

Jenny Craig Diet

Available from franchised weight loss centers where you can see a counselor and purchase the recommended pre-prepared meals. Also available at a distance with counseling by phone and foods delivered.

Raw Food Diet

Mainly promoted for its overall health benefits, with weight loss as an extra plus. There are many variations of the raw food diet including raw vegan, raw vegetarian including raw dairy, and some versions that include raw meat and fish.

Scarsdale Diet

This is a high protein, low carbohydrate, low calorie diet with grapefruit. You follow the diet plan for 2 weeks at a time. Claims you can lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days.

South Beach Diet

Developed by a cardiologist, the South Beach diet identifies good carbohydrates and fats and avoids bad carbohydrates and fats. In three phases, this is a high protein diet for fast weight loss in the first 2 weeks, adding more foods back into the diet in subsequent weeks and finishing with a maintenance plan. Encourages frequent small meals.

Subway Diet

The most faddy diet on our list, this one consists of eating all meals from the healthy food options at the Subway chain of restaurants. Invented by college student Jared Fogle who lost 245 pounds in one year on this diet.

Zone Diet

This diet is based around a plan of consuming 40% of calories from carbs, 30% from protein and 30% from fats. There is no particular calorie restriction. A long term diet that claims to balance the hormones including insulin so that the body can make best use of food, and that a 30% limit on fats prevents the body storing fat.

Always consult with your doctor before starting any weight loss program, even those on our top diets list.

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