Finding the appropriate diet plan means selecting one that complements your lifestyle, provides all of the nutrients required for weight loss, and doesn’t require special foods or vitamins to follow.

If you want to cut calories, focus on replacing processed food with whole food options and eating smaller portions – for instance, try cutting half of a bar of chocolate instead of eating it all!

The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet has long been recognized for its benefits on heart health, but it also assists with diabetes and metabolic syndrome.2 It features reduced sugar, high fiber intake and plenty of olive oil, fish and nuts; red meat consumption should be limited, however yogurt and cheese may still be consumed on occasion.

Diets based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes tend to focus more heavily on fish and healthy plant-based fats such as olive oil, seeds and nuts than on dairy or red meat consumption. Wine may also be enjoyed occasionally.

Food groups on this diet are packed with antioxidants, fiber and vitamin E; omega-3 fatty acids help lower triglycerides and blood clotting; they may even improve gut health by feeding good bacteria which reduce inflammation and depression. According to PREDIMED research findings, those following a Mediterranean diet had 20 percent reduced risk of stroke than those who didn’t follow such diet.

The Weil Diet

This anti-inflammatory diet includes plenty of veggies, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats to protect against heart disease. Furthermore, sugar and sodium intake is restricted so as to decrease high blood pressure risk; sugar may need to be added in supplement form so you’ll get adequate calcium, zinc, vitamin D and potassium intake.

Although not technically a diet, yoga can help you shed excess pounds. Furthermore, its physical activity-oriented practices and focus on stress reduction help lower inflammation in your body and facilitate weight loss.

This diet restricts animal protein, making it hard for some people to adhere to. Therefore, it is advisable that before beginning this diet you consult your physician in order to reduce risks or side effects and ensure you’re receiving enough calories each day based on factors such as age, gender, size and activity level.

The Volumetrics Diet

Unlike diet plans that target specific health concerns, the Volumetrics Diet’s focus is to help people feel full while eating fewer calories. Furthermore, this diet encourages eating a range of healthy food instead of restricting entire food groups or banning certain items altogether.

This plan does not prohibit any foods, and encourages low-cal, high-nutrition options like fruits, non-starchy vegetables, salad, broth-based soups and lean proteins as staples in one’s diet. Indulgences from groups three and four can still be enjoyed; just be mindful to maintain reasonable portion sizes.

This diet’s drawbacks include its insufficient inclusion of heart-healthy fats like olive oil, avocado and nuts that add flavor and vitamin absorption into vegetables, grains and lean proteins. While using this plan as a framework to find healthier eating alternatives and track calories easier.

The Weight Watchers Diet

Weight Watchers Diet teaches people to manage portion control and choose healthier food options, while developing skills like food tracking that remain useful even after leaving WW.

WW provides you with a daily budget of points (formerly SmartPoints) for everyday foods (formerly the “zero point foods”) to stay within. In addition, it includes an unlimited list of “zero point” foods like fruits, eggs, lean meats, non-starchy vegetables and fat-free yogurt that do not count towards this budget.

Counting points can be motivating, and the diet can work for most. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t address nutritional deficiencies, which may be detrimental for those with genetic risk variants of obesity (FTO and MC4R), and does not take sodium intake into consideration for those with high blood pressure (this should be limited by eating healthily and attending weekly workshops and purchasing WW branded products). Finally, WW’s plans can be expensive. Attendance at workshops costs money as does purchasing WW products from retailers like CVS/pharma.