When your body consumes too much energy, the excess energy is stored as fat, resulting in weight gain. Losing weight requires changing your eating habits to get your body's energy intake back in balance. There are several effective diet approaches. However, the best diet approach for you will be based on your food preferences and lifestyle. Making healthy diet changes long term will help you shed unwanted pounds and meet your weight loss goals.
Low Carbohydrate Diets
Low carbohydrate diets limit the amount of carbohydrates you consume daily. Depending on the diet, carbohydrate intake is as little as 10 percent of regular dietary recommendations, according to MayoClinic.com. These diets limit intake of foods high in carbohydrates, such as white flour, white sugar and refined carbohydrates. A low carbohydrate diet works by keeping insulin levels stable, resulting in weight loss. If you decide to follow this diet approach, make sure you can stick with it long term. Also, select protein sources that are low in saturated fat to avoid health risks.
Low-Fat Diets
Another diet approach is the low-fat diet. With this diet, you limit fat intake to about 20 percent or less of your daily calorie intake, according to MayoClinic.com. For example, if you intake 2,000 calories daily, 200 calories or less comes from fat sources. With a low-fat diet, it's important to eat fat-free and low-fat foods with caution. You can gain weight by eating too much of any food, including foods with very little fat per serving.
Meal Provider Diets
If you're busy, meal provider diets are an option to drop pounds, without spending lots of time preparing meals. With this option, you purchase pre-packaged meals that are delivered to your home. Perishable items, such as fruits and vegetables are purchased from your local grocery store. With this diet approach, you'll either subscribe to the meal provider plan indefinitely or eventually, you'll need to learn how to replicate the meals to maintain your weight loss.
Glycemic Index Diets
This diet approach uses the glycemic index to prepare your meals. Each food is assigned a glycemic index rating, depending on the food's effect on your blood sugar. Foods that contain carbohydrates typically have a high score on the index, because of the food's ability to cause blood sugar spikes. With this diet, you focus on controlling blood sugar levels by eating foods that are rated low on the index, resulting in weight loss.
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