There are literally thousands of different diets; the Atkins diet, cereal diets, the Slimfast diet, the Weight Watchers diet, Slimming World. The list is endless. Different people recommend different diets and in my opinion the choice is largely irrelevant. If you stick at any of them, you should lose weight regardless of which you choose. Most people want a quick solution, but there really isn't one. Even the new slimming pills have numerous side effects and most don't even work that well on their own and need you to diet as well.
One caveat I would add is that some diets are high impact diets and it is possible to lose a large amount of weight quite quickly. However, losing too much weight in a short space of time has been shown in numerous studies to be even more detrimental to your health than staying fat. Most health professionals advise against these sorts of diets.
So, imagine you've lost a load of weight with your chosen diet and you're down to your desired weight. What do you do? Stop your diet? That's what most people do, and then they wonder why the weight is coming back on. Some people try to keep up their diet but aren't as strict on themselves any more so they manage to maintain their desired weight. This is good, but after a while it starts to slip again and then they're back where they started.
Now what people don't seem to realise is that they are their correct weight for their food intake and lifestyle. Your body has a correct weight for every possible food intake and lifestyle combination you can think of and your body knows this. Now obviously, this is going to be different for everybody. Everyone is different, with different metabolisms, but for you, at this current time, your weight is defined by your food intake and lifestyle.
It is not the case that if you eat more food than your body needs, you will continually put of weight. If you eat more food than your body needs, your weight will adjust to the correct weight for that amount of food intake.
Imagine a car. Say that it does 20mpg the way you normally drive and you want to save money and get it up to 30mpg. Using the same philosophy behind dietting, you would drive really slowly to get your fuel consumption up to 40mpg and then just drive normally again expect it to reset itself to around 30mpg.
Obviously it doesn't work like that, you just need to drive slowly enough and steadily enough to get it up to 30mpg and then keep driving like that. Basically, you need to make a slight, but permanent change to the way you drive.
And it's exactly the same with your weight. If you just make a permanent change to your food intake and/or lifestyle, your body weight will adjust to the new correct weight. Unfortunately, there is no magic answer. You have to change your life. It's not easy, I admit, but it's essential and it's the only answer. Make the change to the lifestyle that is appropriate for the weight you want to be, and face up to the fact that that is how you are going to have to live your life.
