Many people will be starting on a diet in January and failing with it before we reach February, we know this from fact, it’s like trying to giving up smoking or drinking, doing it on your own is always much harder.

If you want to lose weight (and are serious about it) then consider joining a group this will give you an incentive and encouragement when things start to get hard. One of the best know weight loss groups is Weight Watchers, they have been very successful in helping millions of men and women shed those extra pounds.

Weight Watchers have a devised a four principle diet system:

• Food, they will look at what you are eating, get you back on the right track to eating properly.
• Behaviour, by helping you to recognise the difference of being hungry and not being hungry and help you stop eating just for the sake of eating.
• Exercise, helping you to do more exercise in your everyday life, walking more, running up the stairs and even walking to the park.
• Support, this is one of the massive plus sides to this diet, by attending a weekly meeting and sharing opinions and giving support to each other.

Weight Watchers believe that each principle is as important as each other and essential to successful weight loss.

Once you become a member of the Weight Watcher community you will be advised the best way for you to lose weight, and one of the best ways is through the famous Points Plan. Every food and drink has had a point assigned against it according to its calorie, fibre and fat content. Depending on your weight and how much you want to lose you will be given an amount of points that you are allowed for that day.

If you think that you might struggle doing the Points Plan then Weight Watchers have devised the Momentum™ Program, this is more long term and is designed to change your eating habits. On this program you will learn about Filling Foods, these are foods that will fill you up and keep your hunger at bay longer, if you focus on eating these foods it will make a dramatic difference to your eating habits.

94% of people who have joined Weight Watchers would recommend this diet program to a friend.

As with all diets it is best to consult your GP before starting.

Come the 2nd of January many people will be starting their annual diets, no more chocolate, crisps, nuts or the dreaded Christmas pudding. However many will fail within the first week and even more within the first month. Many people simply don’t understand the diet that they are going onto and in the end, set their goals too high, this ends up in failure.

Therefore choosing the right diet can be just as important as actually carrying it through!

Over the next few weeks we at Weight-loss-Now will be giving you our experience of different diets, hopeful giving you a better understanding of their good and bad points.

The Atkins Diet or the Atkins Nutritional Approach first arrived in Britain in 1972 by an American Dr Robert Atkins; the thinking behind this diet is to cut or limit the amount of Carbohydrates that the body takes in.

This is a high protein, high fat diet which will suit any meat lover.

However it has come in for some bad press over the years due to the amount of fat and protein that the body has to absorb, some people say that it is unhealthy and dangerous as your body in not getting enough of the carbohydrates it requires to function properly and you may find it harder to concentrate and focus properly and may cause constipation and mood swings. This diet has not been around that long so no long term studies into any dangers are conclusive yet.

How does the Atkins diet work?

Our bodies need energy to do everyday tasks from breathing to taking a shower as we are doing a task our bodies are gathering energy from carbohydrates and fat, the carbohydrates are the first to be burnt as energy so the fat has nowhere to go (well we all know where it goes), so the thinking of Dr Robert Atkins is to drastically cut down on the carbohydrates and burn the fat first.

This diet does work and in the first couple of weeks people are expected to lose as much as 10 pounds per week.

I personally like this diet, I have used it and lost nearly two stone in the past, if you love eating fish, chicken and the odd fried breakfast then you will enjoy this diet.

As with all diets it is recommended that you speak to your GP before attempting any food cut down.

Well this is the season to be jolly and don’t we know it, as we sit there stuffing our face with turkey sandwiches, crisps, nuts and chocolate we keep saying to ourselves “I really have to go on a diet but it will have to be after the New Year”. To be honest not many people actually start a diet during the festive season, as we know there are far too many temptations, but once you have made your New Year resolution you have to be serious.

As the second of January arrives so does the diet, but which is the best one for you, you could spend weeks looking through all the diets that are on the market. Which diet is best suited to you, as you study them there are testimonials from people claiming they lost ten pounds in six hours, and “I used to be twenty three stone, look at me now only nine and only been on a diet for twenty weeks”. What are you to do and which diet is best for you?

When we want to lose weight, one thing is for certain we have to use up more calories than we take in, for most that includes doing some extra form of exercise. That does not mean you have to spend hundreds of pounds and joining the local gym, it will be just as good for you taking the kids or the family dog out for a walk another idea is when you want to go to the local shops walk rather than take the car. This is the first step to helping you lose weight.

Choosing a diet!

As I said there are literally thousands of diets on the market, which is best for you? There are diets that help you lose weight quickly, steadily and some that try and restructure your eating habits. We have all heard of the main diets like Atkins diet , Slim fast and Weight Watchers but there are many more that most people have not heard of, diets such as the Lazy Girls Diet, Muffin Top Diet and the Sensa Sprinkles Diet, over the next few weeks we will hopefully help you in choosing a diet that will suit your lifestyle and help you lose those extra pounds.

At this time of year we all love to spoil ourselves especially when we are doing the Christmas shopping we like to go out for lunch or be taken out for dinner. Then when we get home there’s the large tin of chocolates, mince pies and crackers and cheese and that’s not to mention the festive drinking. All this extra eating and drinking will take its toll on your body, we know this, but one thing is for certain we don’t like people saying to us “are you putting on weight?” that just depresses us more, so we eat more.

As Christmas day arrives the festive eating and drinking will continue in-fact how many people will, after their big Christmas Dinner fall into their favourite seat undo the top button of their trousers and relax. This is very common in Britain today, so you are not alone. This is probably the first time the thoughts of a diet come into the head, as you sit there watching the traditional Wizard of Oz or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

As the day’s move towards the New Year the thought of diets still play on your mind as you sit in your house eating your way through bags of nuts, crisps and the occasional take away. Again you are not alone in thinking about your diet, millions of people will be sitting thinking the same but let’s be honest WHO starts their diet at this time of year there is far too much temptation around you.

Diets are normally saved for the resolutions along with the no smoking, drinking less and saving money, if you are serious about losing weight there are various diets that you can look at, over the next few weeks weight-loss-now will be looking at the good and bad points of various diets.