If you’re hoping for effective healthy weight loss (or have ever tried to lose weight), you’ll quickly discover an over-saturation of information. You’ll also come across resources, sales-pitches, and more, that promise amazing results – for a fee. There are other so-called “free” programs that are either extremely complex or challenging. As a result, you wind up giving up after just a few short days.
The problem is, with so many conflicting options, how do you tell what weight-loss program is the right one for you?
Talk to Your Doctor about a healthy weight loss approach
Before beginning any diet or weight loss program, you should discuss it with your doctor. This gives you a chance to know how the diet you are thinking about could affect any medical issues you have or the medication you are taking. Your doctor can also provide additional help and guidance.
You can discuss things beyond what you will and won’t be eating, too. For example, your doctor can give you tips on how to exercise safely. This is especially vital if you suffer from medical or physical challenges, or if you have pain when handling day-to-day tasks.
You should also let your doctor know about any previous efforts you have made to lose weight. Your doctor can also point you in the direction of healthy weight loss support groups. They might even give you a referral to see a registered nutritionist or dietician.
Many Online Resources To Choose From
There are many sites offering different diet advice. It’s human nature to to check out the internet for the latest tips and ideas. Do your research and follow the guidelines below. Of course, sites like Pretty Sweet are useful at giving you information on different diets. However, you will still need a bit more specific information and advice. If that’s the case, you are in the right place. Learn some actionable and useful tips to help ensure you choose the right healthy weight loss plan for you. Ultimately you need to be vigilant about what you take in on the World Wide Web.
Your diet needs will be specific to you
There is no single weight-loss or diet plan that is right for everyone. However, if you think about what you like or prefer, your healthy weight loss goals, and your lifestyle, you are probably going to find a plan that can be customized to your specific needs.
Before you begin any type of weight-loss plan, it is important to think about the following factors:
Past Diet Plans You Have Attempted 
Think about what you enjoyed about these past plans and what you didn’t like about them. You also need to consider if you were able to successfully follow the diet. Consider what worked and how you felt – mentally, physically, and emotionally – while on this diet.
What are Your Personal Preferences?
What would you rather do? Do you want to follow a weight-loss plan alone? Do you want to have support from an entire group? If you prefer group support, do you want to get it online? Or do you want to attend actual meetings in person?
What’s Your Budget?
There are some programs that will require you to purchase meals or supplements, you may have to visit a weight-loss clinic, or even go to support-group meetings. Make sure you consider whether your budget will allow you to do this.
Should you do a DNA test?
If you are in a financial position to take a DNA test, this will help you choose a diet which is matched to your genetic profile. You may have heard about the term nutrigenomics. This is a scientific study of how nutrition interacts with our genes. This means that medical science can now manipulate how our genes work by manipulating our lifestyle. What we eat and how we exercise. Genetic testing identifies the health conditions you may be prone to. Dieticians or specialists in diet can then develop a nutritional intervention to reduce your risk of developing these conditions. DNA samples are collected in the rooms with a cheek swab (no blood test needed).
The results help in designing a nutrition and lifestyle intervention plan to meet a person’s specific requirements.
Additional Considerations when it comes to choosing a healthy weight loss programme
Your health matters when you are trying to lose weight. If you have a condition such as allergies, heart disease, or diabetes (to name a few), this may impact your ability to follow a certain diet or weight-loss plans. You may also have ethnic or cultural preferences or requirements for your food. Thus, it’s best to keep all of this in mind.
Search for an Effective, Healthy and Safe Plan for Losing Weight
Most people are easily tempted by outrageous promises for dramatic and quick weight loss. However, if you want the results to last, it’s best to take a slow and steady approach. This is much easier to maintain and will typically beat faster weight loss over the long term. It’s recommended that (regardless of how much you weigh right now) you lose no more than 0.5 to two pounds per week.
Sometimes, you can lose weight faster; however, it has to be done the right way. Usually, this involves an extremely low-calorie diet along with medical supervision or even a short quick-start phase of a healthier eating plan.
Any weight-loss plan that is going to be successful for you is going to require your long-term commitment. If you fail to make healthy lifestyle changes in the way you eat, behave, and exercise, your efforts are going to be done in vain. It’s important for you to modify your behavior and this is what’s going to have the main impact on your efforts to achieve long-term weight loss.
Make sure that you select a weight-loss plan that you can live with. Some of the features to look for when selecting your weight-loss plan include:
The Flexibility of the Program
A plan that is flexible isn’t going to forbid foods or entire food groups. Instead, it is going to let you choose from an array of foods from all of the main food groups. To eat a healthy diet, you need to include seeds, nuts, lean protein sources, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables in your eating plan.
With a flexible weight-loss plan, you can indulge in items from time to time. The eating plan also needs to include diets you can easily find at your regular grocery store. However, you should make sure that you choose a plan that limits the number of sugary and alcoholic drinks, along with high-sugar sweets. That’s because the high number of calories in these food items don’t offer the nutrients you need for health and weight loss.
Balance
It’s also a good idea to choose a plan that includes proper calories and nutrients. If you eat too much of a specific food, such as meat or grapefruit; eliminate whole food groups, cut your calories drastically, or do something else that is deemed “drastic”, it can cause severe nutritional issues. Healthy and safe weight-loss programs and diets aren’t going to require you to take excessive supplements or vitamins.
Find a Diet that Includes Foods You Like
When you go on a diet, you need to make sure you are still able to eat the foods you enjoy. You should not follow a diet that has foods you can tolerate but don’t really like. If you don’t like the food that’s included in the plan, or if you follow a plan that is too restrictive, or if you wind up getting bored, you aren’t going to stick with it. This is going to mean that achieving any long-term weight loss is going to be virtually impossible.
Consider Your Activity Too
What you eat isn’t the only factor that matters if you are trying to lose weight. You also need to ensure your plan includes plenty of physical activity. Exercise, along with fewer calories, is going to help boost your weight-loss efforts. Even better, exercise offers a number of other health benefits, such as countering the muscle-mass loss that is going to take place. Also, exercise is a big part of being able to maintain your weight loss.
Consider Specific Questions When Evaluating Various Weight-Loss Plans
Before you get ready to choose one of the many weight-loss plans out there, you have to take the time to learn as much as possible about the plans. Just because you have found a popular diet or because your friends are following it, it does not mean that the diet and eating plan is right for you.
To ensure you find the right plans for your needs, lifestyle, and goals, consider these questions first.
What is Involved with the Plan?
Are you looking at a weight-loss plan that is going to give you guidance along the way that you will be able to adapt to the situation? Is it going to require you to purchase any special type of supplement or meal? Does the plan provide any type of in-person or online support? Will it show you a way to make healthy, positive changes in your life, so after you lose weight, you can maintain this way of life?
What is the Concept Behind the Weight-Loss Program?
Take the time to find out if there is any science or research to back up the diet or weight-loss plan. If you visit a weight-loss clinic, what type of experience, certifications, training, or expertise does the staff, dietician, or doctors have? Is the staff at the clinic going to work with your general practitioner when it comes to your health and well-being?
Are There Any Risks?
When you start something new and you change the way you have been eating, there may be side effects. You need to find out if the diet or weight-loss plan you are considering following has any potential issues that may harm your health. Are the recommendations being made with the plan going to be safe for you to follow? What if you have a serious health condition or if you take medication?
What Type of Results Have Been Achieved in the Past?
What’s the expected healthy weight loss with the plan? Are there any claims by the program that you are going to lose weight fast? Do these claims say that you can successfully target specific parts of your body? Have you seen any before and after photos associated with the program that just seem unrealistic? Are you going to be able to maintain this level of weight loss as time passes?
Finding the Keys to Achieving Healthy Weight Loss Success
When it comes to weight loss, there are countless plans out there for you to choose from. However, if you want to achieve long-term success, you have to be willing to make permanent changes to your activity levels and what you eat.
What this means is that you need to find an approach that you can use to change the way you do everything. You aren’t going to maintain healthy weight loss that a diet helps you with, stop the diet, and then revert to your old habits. Doing this is going to result in you putting on all the weight you worked so hard to lose once again.
If you find a diet or weight-loss program that results in you feeling hungry or deprived, then you are likely going to give up. Chances are, this is why you quit past weight-loss efforts. Also, because there are so many diets that don’t encourage you to make a long-term lifestyle change, even if you wind up losing the weight, you may find the pounds return rather quickly if you go off the diet.
You are going to have to be ready to stay vigilant about how much you weigh. However, if you combine a healthier diet with an additional activity, you are going to be able to lose weight. This will then improve your health for the long term.
