Dieting, what is what?

If you're contemplating the lemon juice, cayenne, and maple syrup diet so popular with celebs, you need to know now that starvation, diet pills, and get-slim-quick products are not the solution to your weighty dilemma. The more you fall for quack diets and potions, the harder it becomes to lose weight the next time around. You go off your diet (or diet pill) and the weight comes back—sometimes faster than you lost it—and can leave you heavier than you were when you started!

The fr-enemy diets: Recent research gave the Atkins Diet a modest nod over other popular diets. But the overall results of this JAMA study (which weren’t trumpeted in the media) actually found that none of the most popular diets of the past few years works! Average weight loss after a year on the high-protein Atkins Diet was 10.4 pounds. The low-fat Dean Ornish eating plan: a paltry 4.8 pounds. The low-carb Zone diet: only 3.5 pounds! Most of the weight was lost in the first two months, then regained over the next 10.

More promise breakers: Don't waste your money on weight-loss products or OTC diet pills, either. Americans spend more than $35 billion on diet foods and drinks, books, drugs, medical treatments, and commercial weight-loss chains annually. Do you think if any of these actually worked we’d keep spending year-in, year-out?

Detour: Three to four pounds are worth an entire year of self-sacrifice? Come on! Legit studies backed by the National Institutes of Health show that you can achieve long-term weight loss only by reducing your calorie intake and increasing your physical activity. No more truthful equation was ever written. Many studies have shown that you can lose about a pound a week by eating 500 fewer calories a day, eventually resulting in weight loss of 15 percent of your total body weight.

Instead of starving yourself or wasting your hard-earned cash, try these actions:

Reduce your calories by substituting refined carbs with whole grains like brown rice and quinoa

Eat fruit at snack time

Chew on some good fats like olive oil and nuts, and ditch anything made with hydrogenated fats.

Take your pooch, or a family member, for a walk for at least 30 minutes every day.


To lose weight and not regain it, changes in thinking, eating, and exercise are your only route to success.

You can burn 200 calories, and rack up a major amount of steps, by taking a 30 minute-stroll to get your morning coffee. Do this for just over two weeks and you’ll lose a pound (3,500 calorie deficit = a one pound loss). Performing simple chores rather than hiring someone else to do them will also help you rack up steps and burn calories. For example, a 140-pound woman can burn quite a few calories in 30 minutes with these activities:

Leisurely bike ride to the post office: 254 calories

Weeding your garden: 143 calories

Cleaning the house (dusting, taking out the trash, straightening up): 95 calories (if you vacuum: 111 calories)

Bathing your dog: 173 calories

Walking quickly to meet your friend for lunch: 200 calories

When it comes to weight loss, most fruits and vegetables are so low in calories they hardly make a dent in your daily intake. Plus, they're high in fiber (read: your tummy won’t grumble an hour after eating them, leaving you less likely to shake down a vending machine later). To maintain optimal health and lose weight, the USDA recommends you shoot for two cups of fruit and two and a half cups of veggies every day. By the way, even though they're made of potatoes, high-fat, high-cal french fries don’t count!

To kill veggie and fruit tedium, try something different: cauliflower purée (think of it as a healthier version of mashed potatoes); in salads, hold the lettuce and have cucumbers and tomatoes with a sprinkling of feta cheese; grill peaches with honey; bake an apple with cinnamon; broil a banana. Try to eat all five vegetable varieties several times a week: dark green (like broccoli and spinach); orange (like squash); legumes (peas), starchy veggies (baked potato), and other vegetables (like asparagus and beets).