Healthy weight loss plan vs fad diet

Before you decide to follow a weight loss plan, make sure you're choosing a healthy, nutritional diet and not a trendy fad diet. How can you tell? Use these checklists to see what that diet plan really is.

What a Healthy Weight Loss Plan Looks Like?
If the diet or food plan you're considering is healthy, it should include most - if not all - of these elements:

• Has both a balanced nutrition plan with a variety of foods and includes ongoing exercise

• Has a goal of slow-and-steady weight loss of about 1/2 to 2 pounds (maximum) per week

• Encourages your doctor's involvement, especially if you've never exercised before or if you are hoping to lose a substantial amount of weight

• Is based on common sense -  limits fat, sugar, and the overall amount of food you eat, and encourages you to exercise more

What a Fad Diet Looks Like?
The diet or food plan is probably unhealthy if it has any of the following:

• Bans specific foods or entire food groups (eg. "no carbs")

• Requires you to only eat certain foods (like the grapefruit diet, or the cabbage soup diet)

• Requires special foods, pills, or supplements for weight loss to occur. Remember, just because products are sold in stores doesn't mean they are always safe for you to use.

• Offers quick weight loss but no long-term plan to keep the weight off after you've lost it

• Tries to sell you on the diet based primarily on "before" and "after" photos or celebrity endorsements

• Sounds too good to be true

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