There are a number of people at present, who wants to lose weight or to maintain their weight. But how do you choose the right weight loss program for you? How sure you are that the diet program you are in would truly give the desired weight that you are looking for?

There are a lot of diet plans available on the market: low fat diet, high protein diet, fixed menu, pre-packaged meal, formula diet, etc. So how do you choose the best program for you? In choosing a diet plan, you must keep in mind a program with a healthy long term weight loss plan is the best program for any individual. Unfortunately, there are a lot of programs out there that do not have this plan.

In looking for a weight loss program, the program must ensure that you will lose weight permanently and in a healthy manner. First thing you must consider in choosing is that the diet should be safe. The food that you are taking in should contain all of the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) for vitamins, minerals, and protein. A diet plan can be low in calories but should not be low on essential nutrients that your body need. And it should not be very restrictive on the food you eat or else you won’t be able to stick with the plan.

It should also include plans for weight maintenance after the weight loss phase is over. It is not practical or logical that you lose a large amount of weight after a few days or weeks and only to regain it afterwards. Weight maintenance may be the most difficult part of controlling weight and it is not consistently implemented in most diet programs.

And also, the weight loss program you choose should provide behavior modification. It must include education in healthy eating habits and long term plans to deal with weight problems. Now to help you choose with a program, here are some reviews of the available diet programs out there that you can choose from.

1.Low Fat Diet Program recommends low fat or no fat foods. The principle behind this diet program is that by reducing fat intake with regular exercise can lead to lasting weight loss. This program can be effective if properly produced or administered by weight loss experts and the result can be steady and long term weight loss. The disadvantage of this program is that reduce fat consumption too much can become harmful to your health. Some even recommend a high consumption of carbohydrates, which is also not good for the body.

2.High Protein Diet requires high consumption of protein and low on carbohydrate foods. The principle of this program is that carbohydrates can make people fat and reducing its consumption can lead to fat loss. This program can cause rapid weight loss in the beginning but not in the long run. Though this kind of program can lead to a steadying of blood sugar levels, which is healthy. But this program also encourages over consumption of saturated fats, which can also increase the risk of heart disease. And the rapid burning of fatty acids due to the lack of carbohydrates can cause the kidney to work overtime and may lead to serious health problems.

3.Fixed Menu Diet provides you with a fixed menu of foods that you can eat. It may keep track of your calorie needs and some stresses that the same calorie count is good for most dieters. This weight loss program is easy to follow because the foods are already selected for you. And most of the time there is no need to keep the calorie count. The problem with this program is that it can fail in the long run because the food choice is very limited, which makes it hard to follow in the long run. And some of the plans can be harmful due to a lack of balanced diet.

4.Pre packaged Meal Diet requires you to buy a pre-packaged meal. This weight loss program stresses on taking appropriate portion sizes of food. This is an easy to follow diet plan but it can produce a fad diet effect. It can cause an initial weight loss due to a loss of water from the body but the dieter won’t probably lose more than 10 or 15 pounds. And it can be costly.

5.Formula Diet replaces one or more meals with a liquid formula. This program contains a balanced diet of protein, carbohydrate and a small amount of fat. This can be effective in the short term though it can’t produce a long term effect. And people can regain weight as soon as they stop using the formula.

These are just a few weight loss programs available. There are still other programs that you can look into but before you decide to try any program, be sure to consult your doctor first.