Ten Million Diet Plans
eDiets.com is one of our fabulous sponsors, and so I headed over there to do the free diet profile. But right away they ask you to choose a diet. The choices are: Total Body Makeover (by Oprah), The Mayo Clinic Plan, Atkins, Glycemic Impact Diet, New Mediterranean Diet Plan, eDiets.com Weight Loss Plan, and Bill Phillips' Eating For life.
The only one of these I know anything about is Atkins. I think the Total Body Makeover is focused on exercise, and the Mediterranean diet involves olives and yogurt and feta cheese. (I am totally making this up.)
What I really want is something like South Beach, where you have a phase of cutting sugars, carbs, alcohol etc. totally out of your diet. My sugar cravings have become a problem, and I've been eating unhealthily and feeling gross. I really want to do some kind of a system flush for a couple of weeks.
Anyone tried any of these diets? Good, bad, indifferent? Easy, difficult? Anyone tried eDiets.com? Is it any good?
The only one of these I know anything about is Atkins. I think the Total Body Makeover is focused on exercise, and the Mediterranean diet involves olives and yogurt and feta cheese. (I am totally making this up.)
What I really want is something like South Beach, where you have a phase of cutting sugars, carbs, alcohol etc. totally out of your diet. My sugar cravings have become a problem, and I've been eating unhealthily and feeling gross. I really want to do some kind of a system flush for a couple of weeks.
Anyone tried any of these diets? Good, bad, indifferent? Easy, difficult? Anyone tried eDiets.com? Is it any good?
8 Comments:
I haven't tried any of the diets listed, but from what I know the Glycemic Impact diet is probably the most similar to the South Beach diet. (I haven't done the South Beach diet either, but I'm following a kind of homegrown plan that emphasizes limiting refined carbs and sugar. I just got the two South Beach diet cookbooks as a gift, and my general impression is that the diet is pretty nutritionally sound and the recipes look pretty tasty.)
I don't find my diet too hard to maintain, but it helps if you really dig veggies and whole grains.
I also recall an issue of Health Magazine a few months back where they put volunteers on one of 4 diet (Weight Watchers, Atkins, a Mediterranean-style plan, and one other) plans and reported on the results. As I recall, the Mediterranean-style plan got high marks for being flexible and easy to follow, but some dieters felt that it was too flexible: that the plan didn't give them enough guidance. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same Mediterranean-style plan as the one offered by eDiets, so that may be quite different.)
Don't know a whole lot about the other diets.
I haven't tried eDiets, but I will tell you a great thing to try if you're trying to rein in your sugar stuff: Fat Flush.
It's a totally ridiculous name, but the "flush" part refers to toxins. It's not for me because I'm not hardcore enough to do it on an ongoing basis, but some people do a Fat Flush (even characters played by Queen Latifah, if the commercial for her latest movie is any indication!) once a quarter to get their bodies feeling better.
It's got a two-week Phase I. Let me tell you, the first three to four days are gonna SUCK -- whenever I do one I always plan to stick around home and have a lazy weekend. They don't even recommend really doing exercise because your body will fight you on it and you won't have the energy.
But after the fourth day, that donut or piece of chocolate calling your name from the grocery store up the block and around the corner will be silenced. I swear, it must be like kicking smack or something.
Anyway, I recommend it. The site is at http://www.fatflush.com -- and I recommend getting the book, which will give you details and will also tell you the whys and wherefores of what you're doing (which have always helped me to stay on track).
My former boss used to do the Fat Flush all the time; I forgot about that one. Maybe I'll do a two-week Fat Flush! That's a great idea.
(I forgot to mention that she never lost weight, even though she also exercised all the time. But that's not my focus anyway.)
I tend not to really try to focus on the weight loss I had with it (because it won't work for me in the long term, so I have to stop trying for weight loss). But I lost 14 pounds in two weeks.
I've tried e*diets and found it to be very easy to follow. They provide the user with daily meal plans and give three options: all convenience foods, all home cooked meals or a combination of the two. I chose convenience foods for Breakfast and Lunch and cooked my dinners. They provided recipes for all meals. The user can also print out the weekly grocery list that lists all of the incredients. I particulary enjoyed being able to change a meal if it included something I didn't like. There are also chat groups,etc that can be used for additional support and email messages are sent as well. I thought it was a good program, but I missed the human contact I get with WW so I've gone back to that. (Success rate is actually about equal.)
I used eDiets back in 1999, when it was just one diet, which could be tweaked for vegetarianism of low sodium / low cholesterol / low GI. This was before Atkins Madness [TM]. I LOVED that it allowed me to plan a whole week's food, then print out a shopping list. I was 19 and it was the first time I actively tried to take control of my eating. I credit eDiets with the start of taking better care of myself, and it definietly was the first place that taught me portion size guidelines.
So I have a pretty high opinion of the usefulness of eDiets, but when I went back to try using it once more in 2004 I was dazzled by all the plans, tried "The Zone" for two weeks and gave up when it told me to buy protein powder for my porridge. Though that two weeks helped ease my husband and I off our dependence on slimfast for breakfasts, and start eating much more real food, so it was very useful!
funnily enough, i just started south beach yesterday because you mentioned it a few weeks ago somewhere, to get rid of your sugar cravings. i have a big problem with sugar too, so i looked into it further.
day 2 isn't too bad, but i think i need to eat a bit more. and i want some hot tamales!
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