Programs for losing weight may impose dietary rules or guidelines, or prescribe benchmarks to increase your physical activity. Weight loss programs may also include a combination of dietary components and physical activity. Evaluating individual programs for losing weight involves personal and health considerations. Programs that make unrealistic promises or limit your food choices may not provide safe or sustainable weight loss.
Diet
Programs for losing weight may emphasize dietary components. The Mayo Clinic recommends weight loss diet programs that include multiple foods from each major food group such as fruits, vegetables, grains, low-fat dairy, lean protein, nuts and seeds. Weight loss diet programs that include food you enjoy eating helps you lose weight, and keep it off for the rest of your life. Medline Plus suggests avoiding fad diets. Fad diet programs for weight loss make unrealistic promises and may overemphasize individual food groups or limit your food choices. These diets may lead to temporary and unsustainable weight loss, or increase your risk for health problems.
NutriSystem offers both shelf-stable and frozen-fresh foods with meals and snacks that are low in saturated and trans fats, which are sodium and portion-controlled. NutriSystem offers low-glycemic foods and omega-3 fatty acids, which promote heart health and fiber to help you feel full. The Mayo Clinic diet allows you to continue eating the foods you love, but in moderation. The Weight Watchers PointPlus program allows you to eat the foods you enjoy while staying within your daily calorie range. Weight Watchers helps you balance foods you love with nutritious choices like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains.
Exercise
Physical activity may contribute to programs for losing weight to help you burn more calories of fat. Moderate intensity aerobic exercise that lasts around 45 minutes or longer draws on higher proportions of energy from burning body fat. This type of activity may include a brisk walk, cycling or any continuous activity that brings your heart rate between 50 and 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. You can calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Medline Plus reports that a medium-sized adult can burn approximately 1 lb. of fat by walking 30 miles. Resistance exercise such as weightlifting also promotes fat loss. Weightlifting sessions increase your lean muscle tissue, which boosts your metabolism and burns more fat for energy during low intensity activity. This type of exercise may speed up your metabolism for around 36 hours after your workout.
Combination
The key to losing weight involves ingesting fewer calories than you burn with physical activity every day. Therefore, you may reduce the number of calories you eat, or increase the physical activity you perform each day to lose weight. Programs for losing weight may combine dietary components and physical activity. A combination of diet and exercise may increase your chances of reaching your weight loss goals, and maintaining a healthy weight for the rest of your life. Controlling your diet and getting regular physical activity is the best way to control your weight.
Weight Loss Rate
Programs for losing weight may suggest that you can lose a certain amount of weight within a particular time frame. Losing weight too quickly can increase your risk of adverse healthy conditions and metabolic problems such as gallstones. Family Doctor recommends losing weight at a maximum rate of 1 to 2 lbs. each week. Losing 1 lb. of fat each week requires ingesting 500 fewer daily calories than the amount required to maintain your weight, because 1 lb. of fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. You can achieve the same results by burning 500 calories with exercise, or balancing your total intake between diet and exercise. Determine the number of calories required to maintain your weight by adding your basal metabolic rate to the number of calories that you burn during physical activity.
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