1. Determine your daily calorie intake . Losing weight is simply a matter of expending more calories than you take in, through exercise and your daily activities. To win the battle, it helps to know how many calories you are consuming in a day.

* Write down all the things you eat on a typical day. Carry a small notebook with you and write down every snack, every drink, and the contents of every meal. There are also great websites that you can use to keep track of calories, get recipes, and help achieve your goal. Don’t forget to include the pats of butter or the spoonful of sugar in your coffee. It’s best to do this for at least a couple weekdays and a weekend; it’s even better if you can go a full week. There are also calorie tracking websites that can help you to do this.

* Do an itemized calorie count. When possible, write down the number of calories in each thing you eat as you eat it. Keep in mind that the recommended serving size is often considerably smaller than the serving you actually eat. Look up the calorie count on the internet for foods that don’t have calories listed on the container or for fast food meals. You don’t have to be 100% accurate, but you do want a good estimate of the number of calories you’re taking in. There is an idea that multiplying your own weight by ten will produce a rough estimate of the number of calories you need to eat per day to maintain your weight. This is NOT true, you may wind up grossly under (or perhaps over) estimating the number of calories you should be eating. Use a scientific or health website to determine the number of calories you should eat a day or consult your doctor. Everyone has different metabolisms and there is no blanket rule that covers everyone’s recommended calorie intake. Reducing 500 calories per day from the calories you eat to maintain your weight can help you lose a pound of fat per week.

2. Go over the list and decide which foods to cut out or reduce. Cutting calories is usually a lot easier than you might think. For example, that daily tall latte in the morning may pack 500 calories. Since a pound of flab (lost or gained) is roughly equivalent to 3,500 calories, replacing that rich beverage with black coffee can help you lose a pound a week. Other easy cuts include salad dressing (salad dressing is the number one source of fat in the average American woman’s diet) soda pop, candy, and butter. Look at the nutritional information for the foods you eat, pay special attention to your intake of saturated fats and empty calories (high-sugar foods). You don’t need to cut these things out entirely, but if you reduce your intake of high-fat, high-calorie foods you’ll lose weight faster.

3. Seek out alternatives to the unhealthy foods you’ve identified. You can simply reduce the amount of soda you drink or mayonnaise you put on your sandwiches, or you can substitute healthier choices. Drink water instead of soda, for example, or use mustard instead of mayo. Low-fat and low-calorie options are also available for most foods, and many of these are natural, (although some are made with strange chemicals), and tasty. Start trying to eat healthy in most meals:

* Choose lean meats. Chicken and fish are both very low in fat (and certain fish like salmon, sardines, and fresh tuna are an excellent source of antioxidants, which are also beneficial to your health), so aim to replace some or all of the beef or pork in your diet with these foods.

* Replace high-calorie side dishes with healthier alternatives. Many people get a ton of calories from side dishes such as macaroni and cheese, French fries, or potato salad. You can eat healthier and lose weight by replacing these with fresh vegetables and salads. Pre-made salads are practically effortless, and when accompanied by a reduced-calorie dressing or no dressing at all, they’re weight-loss gold.

* Start your days off right. A fattening breakfast of bacon and eggs or a pastry can be replaced with yogurt, oatmeal, high-fiber, low-sugar cereals; or fresh fruit for fruit smoothies. However, for those on a low carb diet bacon and eggs are a great combo for breakfast, since neither have carbs. But don’t fall into the trap of skipping breakfast. Eating a healthy breakfast increases your rest metabolic rate earlier in the day, and reduces snacking before lunch.

4. Plan your meals. Look for healthy, delicious meals online or in your cookbooks, and create a menu for the week. Make sure that your meal plan reduces your total calorie intake: you’re not going to lose weight if you consume the same amount of calories by eating different foods. Make a list of what you’ll need for these meals, and — except for a few snacks, of course — don’t stray from your list when you get to the market. Planning your meals helps ensure you get a balanced diet and reduces the temptation to stop off for fast food or order a pizza. Remember, it’s easier to stick to your shopping list if you shop when you aren’t hungry.

5. Watch your portion sizes. Opening a bag of rice cakes and eating all of them in one sitting isn’t going to help you lose weight. When eating chips, nuts, or dried fruit put a portion in a small bowl and then put the bag away. That way you won’t mindlessly eat a larger portion than you had intended. Even if you only make minimal changes to your diet choices, reducing portion size will inevitably reduce caloric intake. A great way to watch portion sizes while snacking is to buy one serving 100 calorie packages – and they come in many favorite snack food items!

6. Graze on healthy snacks. Just because you’re getting healthy doesn’t mean you can’t snack. In fact, eating small meals and snacks throughout the day, or grazing, has been shown to aid weight loss, (compared to eating three large meals a day), by keeping metabolism steadier. Pick snacks that are low in calories and fat and high in fiber (dried apricots, nuts, rice cakes, fruits, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, and so on). Vegetables are generally very low in calories, very high in fiber, and full of flavor and nutrition. Avoid starchy vegetables like potatoes, and try to eat vegetables plain, without fatty dressings or dips. Fruit also makes a good snack. Fruit contains more soluble fiber than vegetables, which slows your body’s absorption of carbohydrates, thus releasing energy more slowly, (preventing sugar highs), and keeping you feeling full longer. Fruit juices are not a replacement for the real thing. You need that fiber, and juices often have more calories than the equivalent serving of fruit — as many calories as soda! Be careful with dried fruits, because without the water, you tend to eat more, and fruits, when dried, are calorie-rich per ounce. With any dry or dried food, be sure to drink plenty of water.

7. Get more fiber. There are many myths about fiber, but there is science to back up its helpful role in the diet. Fiber keeps the right amount of water in your intestines, making your digestive system work more efficiently and helping to keep you regular. Thus, just eating enough fiber may help you feel slimmer in just a day or so. There is also evidence that fiber in the diet can help prevent stroke and heart disease, ease the effects of diabetes, and may even directly help in weight loss.

8. Drink plenty of water. Adequate water is essential for health, and a great many people simply don’t get enough. What’s more, if you’re chronically dehydrated, your body will retain water in unflattering places, so if you make sure to get plenty of fluids you can start visibly trimming down in as little as a day. Remember, the more you exercise, the more water you’ll need. See the related wikiHow for more details on how much water you should be getting.

9. Exercise. Remember, you can lose weight either by decreasing your calorie intake or increasing the number of calories you burn. Any health strategy should include both, but if you want to lose weight fast, exercise is essential.

10. Perform high-level aerobic activities. Moderate aerobic workouts incorporating jogging, brisk walking, cycling, aerobic machines, or classes not only burn calories — they also keep your heart healthy. Swimming is also great, especially if you are quite overweight or have joint problems, because you can get the same benefits of running — typically burning even more calories — with much less stress on your joints. Try to get at least 30-40 minutes of aerobic exercise at least three or four days per week.

11. Pump some iron. Resistance training, (weight training), can help both sexes stay lean by building muscle and raising metabolism. The fact is, hours and hours of aerobic exercise won’t help most people lose weight fast because your metabolism drops back to normal fairly quickly after stopping the exercise. If you gain muscle, however, your body’s resting metabolism, (the amount of calories you burn when you’re just sitting still), increases, because muscle requires a lot of calories to maintain. Studies have shown consistent weight training to raise the body’s metabolism by 15%. This means an average woman might burn 200-300 more calories at rest every day! Resistance training is the gift that keeps on giving! Although, keep in mind that muscle mass weighs more than fat (don’t be surprised if you gain weight but look slimmer).

12. Rest properly. This means not only taking at least 24-48 hours between strength training the same muscles, (and taking 1-2 days off from exercising each week); it also means getting enough sleep at night, since sleep deficiency impairs your ability to lose fat.

13. Be realistic. Don’t expect a miracle. Healthy weight loss can be achieved fairly quickly, but you’ll need to be patient. In addition, be sure to set realistic goals. Make sure that the weight you’re trying to reach is a healthy weight for you, and keeping in mind that gaining pounds of muscle will help you lose fat, be trimmer, and look better even though you don’t actually lose any weight. Your goal should be a healthy body, not a number of pounds! Everyone looks good at a different weight. A short person may look really good at about 112 pounds, but a person of a taller height would just look unhealthy. Keep yourself at a weight that makes you look good, not at a number that sounds good.

14. Make adjustments. A successful weight loss strategy based on reducing calorie intake and increasing activity can be adjusted to maintain your desired weight once you reach it. Unlike typical diets, this method is sustainable — it is a lifestyle change, not a binge-and-purge exercise. Slowly adjust your diet and exercise to include more weight training and calories, as much as is comfortable for you. If you do gain any weight back, you want that weight to be lean, toned muscle, not fat. In addition, weight training, no matter what your age, prevents muscle atrophy and can help stave off osteoporosis.

* Instead of thinking of it as losing a certain amount of pounds, think of it as being a certain weight.

So if you are 145 pounds, and you would like to lose 10 pounds, think of it as being 135 pounds. This helps you think about it as a long-term goal and not just losing the weight to gain it back again.

15. Be confident. You need to believe in yourself! If you want to diet, and you know that it will make you feel better, then you need confidence. Otherwise, the temptation to cheat on your diet will make it harder, and you will not feel better when you do lose weight. Avoid temptations like chocolate, ice cream, and cookies. They may taste good, but there are other foods that taste delicious, too, without being unhealthy. You need to always encourage yourself to achieve the goals that you have set. Learn to evaluate your efforts fairly and objectively. If you fail to achieve your target for the week, find out why is it so. Is it because you have missed a jogging session? Or you have been eating junk food for one of the days? After evaluating, look ahead to next week and try your best to stick to your plan.

16. Be consistent and disciplined, and have self motivation. To lose weight effectively, you need to stick to your weight loss plan religiously so as to see results. When you have the thought of giving up, visualize how good you will look when you manage to slim down successfully.

Source: www.wikihow.com

10. The Herbalife Diet: The Herbalife Diet is an easy but costly diet mainly consisting of supplements and one well balanced meal a day. It is a diet whose goal is profit but people can achieve fairly good results on it, except that it may come at an expense to their health. Some of the Herbalife supplements contain sida cordifolia, which is part of the ephedrine alkaloids family.

9. The Low Carb Diet is a diet that is low in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates such as breads, pastas, sugars and others that raise your blood sugar levels, which create a rise in a hormone secreted by the pancreas called ‘insulin’. When there is a lack of carbohydrates it starts a mighty powerful chemical reaction. There are many diets; such as the ‘Atkins diet’, ‘Zone diet’ and ‘South Beach diet’. Diets like these have one thing in common: they are high in proteins and fats and low in carbohydrates.
8. The Zone Diet: While most of the research conducted on the zone diet has shown positive results in the first 6 months, more research needs to be conducted after that initial 6-month period. There appears to be a slowing down in the weight loss. Comparing the zone diet with a balanced diet of high protein, high fibre, lots of fruit and vegetables and exercise I believe the latter is the more healthy route. Your body was not meant to have a deficit of carbohydrates.

7. The Medifast Diet: The medifast diet is a low fat, low calorie mixture of balanced foods and appetite suppressors which are in special easy to eat shakes, bars, puddings, chilis, oatmeals and hot cocoa from the Medifast Diet Company. The appetite suppressor used is ‘Super Citrimax’ which comes from a native Southeast Asian plant, “Garcinia Cambogia”. Thus far it has been shown to be a safe appetite suppressor; but most of the studies have been performed with rats. The diet should only be followed by the direct supervision of a medical doctor to monitor your weight loss and diet.

6.The Sonoma diet is one which attempts to control portion sizes, limit caloric intake and encourage a fondness for cooking and an appreciation of food. It is not an innovative approach to weight loss but there are some good principles and recommended foods involved. It is not for those who do not enjoy spending time in the kitchen or at the grocery stores.

5. The Best Life Diet: The Best of Life Diet was created by an exercise physiologist, Bob Greene, and has been made famous by Oprah. ‘Oprah owes her recent weight loss to his Best Life Diet plan’. Oprah promotes his plan as an opportunity to look at your life as a whole. Oprah has definitely pulled out all the stops to make Bob a celebrity by showing ‘before’ photographs of overweight people, listening to their testimonials and then unveiling the ‘new’ them with their slimmer bodies. At first glance, the Best Life Diet seems very logical: finding out what your own personal barriers are to keeping up with an exercise and nutritional program and overcoming them.
4. Mediterranean Diet: We’ve all heard the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” New studies reveal that we shouldn’t just do as they do, we should eat as they do too! Following a Mediterranean-type diet—a blend of traditional cuisines of the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea—has been found to provide many health benefits, such as reducing the risk for heart disease and cancer.

3. The Dash Diet: The DASH Diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and it calls for a reduction in the amount of sodium consumed in a daily diet. Recent studies have shown that this diet can lower the blood pressure of individuals and since this diet is backed by the National Institutes of Health it would suggest that these claims are valid. The DASH Diet focuses on keeping blood pressure below 120/80 mmHg. Any value above this is considered to be a health risk.

2. Abs Diet: The Abs Diet is a diet which focuses on their slogan : ABS DIET POWER which stands for almonds, beans, spinach, dairy, instant oatmeal, eggs, turkey, peanut butter, olive oil, whole grains, extra protein powder and raspberries. It actually doesn’t focus on abs at all, the abs diet is just a healthy diet. The diet is actually a great one as it is more of a lifestyle change rather than a 2-3 month focus on changing caloric intake.

1. NO DIET! : focusing on the 6 rules to nutrition is the only way to keep the weight off and maintain a low percentage of bodyfat. It’s simple, easy to remember and once you’re aware of them you’ll keep the weight off for good. Besides nutrition, exercise is extremely important to increase your metabolism.