The zone diet

The basis of the zone diet requires that you maintain the level of insulin in the body in a certain zone, it is said that by doing so you can lose up to 10 pounds in 5 weeks. On this diet you eat three main meals a day plus two snacks in between never going more than 5 hours in between eating.

One third of your meal is made up of a protein food which should be no bigger than the size and thickness of the palm of your hand. The other two thirds should consist of carbohydrates which can be fruit and vegetables and a touch of fat which can be nuts, olive oil or avocado.

Celebrities who follow this diet include:

• Jennifer Anniston

• Brad Pitt

• Matt LeBlanc

• Cindy Crawford

• Demi Moore

• Sandra Bullock

• Elle McPherson

The Atkins diet

The Atkins diet is a nutritional diet which can help lower your cholesterol and stabilise your blood sugar level, the diet allows you to eat generous amounts of foods that are dense in nutrients.

For example for breakfast you could have an omelette with mushrooms and turkey bacon, for lunch chicken salad, for dinner baked salmon with broccoli and an Atkins advantage bar for a snack in between.

Celebrities who follow this diet include:

• Sarah Jessica Parker

• Gerri Halliwell

• Minnie Driver

Raw food, vegan or macrobiotic diet

The macrobiotic diet is said to bring harmony within the body by the principal of Yin and yang, where foods are categorised as either yin or yang. The basis for this diet consists of whole-grains, fresh vegetables and beans and sea vegetables.

The diet also governs the preparation of food and also how food is eaten. For example the use of a microwave is frowned upon, only eat when hungry, food should be eaten in a relaxed attitude and time should be taken over chewing the food.

Celebrities who follow this diet include:

• Pamela Anderson

• Madonna

• Gwyneth Paltrow

• Alicia Silverstone

• Donna Karan

• Demi Moore

The South beach diet

The south beach diet consists of three different phases, the strictest of the three is the first and this lasts for two weeks, there are certain foods which are allowable and these are called the foods to enjoy list.

The diet focuses on eating good carbs and fats and phase one totally eliminates fruit, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked foods and alcohol from the diet for two weeks.

After phase one you can then start to introduce these foods back into your diet, this plan can only be followed through purchasing a book called the south beach diet.

Celebrities who follow this diet include:

• Bill and Hilary Clinton

• Bette Midler

The sugar busters diet

As the name suggests on this diet you will give up sugar totally in your diet, this means all sources of sugar and foods such as honey, beer, pasta and potatoes, which are all high on the glycemic index scale.

The sugar buster’s diet allows you to eat lean meat, chicken and other lean sources of protein, certain vegetables can be eaten which include beans, lettuce and squash and some low fat dairy products. Whole grain foods are acceptable as are many fruits.

Celebrities who follow this diet include:

• Tori Spelling

• Sharon Stone

• Kylie Minogue

• Kelly Preston

There have been many diets promising to work wonders for us while still eating fatty foods but health experts still insist that to lose weight and keep your heart healthy a low fat diet is the way to go.

A report published in 1993 linked heart disease with the diet, since then guidelines have been set out to help reduce our intake of sugar, salt, fat and saturates.

While the report focused on reducing the amount of fat in the diet to help combat heart disease, health experts also began recommending a low fat diet as the way to lose weight.

Following this recommendation diets such as The Rosemary Connelly hip and thigh diet, which was based around a diet of low fat, sprang to life. Most health experts have agreed that a low fat diet in combination with a high intake of fibre is one of the most successful ways of losing weight.

How does a low fat diet work?

The basis of any successful diet is lowering the amount of calories you have per day enough for your body to create an energy deficit, which in turn will cause your body to start using its fat to supply the calories needed.

Fat is the most energy dense nutrient containing 9 calories per gram, therefore one of the easiest ways to reduce the calorie intake is to lower the amount of fat eaten.

How much fat should be included in the diet?

Health experts have recommended that no more than a third of the calories needed per day should come from fat; evidence has suggested that by reducing the fat intake to 20 to 30% of the calories needed per day is far more effective in weight loss than a very low fat intake. This is thought to be because people do not stick to diets extremely low in fat through boredom and restriction.

How many grams of fat should I have each day?

The amount of fat will depend on the person and the calories intake per day, guidelines can be given but it is not essential that you stick to any set amount every single day.

Will a completely fat free diet help me lose weight quicker?

It would be almost impossible to have a completely fat free diet as all food has a small amount of fat even fruit and vegetables.

Our bodies need a certain amount of fat as there are certain components in fat that our body’s cells need, our bodies are insulated by fat and a small amount keeps the major organs protected. Vitamins A, C, D and K are fat-soluble and are found in foods that have a high fat content.

Therefore, a completely fat free diet would mean that the intake of these vitamins would be extremely low. There are also certain essential fatty acids that our bodies need to help maintain healthy skin and protect against disease, omega 6,s and omega 3,s are not made by our body and must be eaten in the diet.

There is even evidence that suggests that omega 3 fats can actually help you lose weight as it helps to keep the blood sugar level steady. This means that you are less likely to feel the need to snack in-between meals.

Is there an easy way to tell how much fat is in food?

Labels on food can be very misleading because foods labelled “reduced fat” are not automatically low in fat, all this means is that the food must contain less than 25% fat than a “normal product” would.

Foods labelled low in fat are also not necessarily low in calories so it’s always worth checking labels carefully especially the calorie content of the product.

It is thought that around 70% of the female population have been or will go on a diet sometime in their lives, dieting has always been popular and there has been many different diets and diet and exercise routines throughout the years.

It seems just about every week a famous face will pop up with the next diet and fitness routine that will promise to change your life. People will try anything to shed those pounds, from popping the latest wonder pill that promises to work even as we sleep to drinking nothing but milk shakes as replacements for meals. Why then do so many of us fail when it comes to dieting?

Willpower

Many diets do produce results in the short term but only a handful of dieters are able to maintain this weight loss and indeed some even end up weighing more than when they started on the diet.

Dieting over the long term is hard because most diets require us to make changes to our eating habits and stay clear of foods that we most enjoy, for example sweets, biscuits, crisps and chocolate.

We simply get fed up of not having those food items and establishing a new healthier eating pattern is hard and takes time. Dieting and keeping the weight off over any length of time requires strong willpower, diets are particularly hard to stick with especially if you have been too hard on yourself and are restricting the amount of calories you take in too harshly.

Very often weight is lost more at the beginning of a diet and then slows down, seeing progress early sometimes can cause us to let go and start sneaking in a little more chocolate or biscuits and before we know it not only have we gained the weight we lost but also maybe added a pound or two extra.

Diets leave us hungry

Research has shown that dieting can leave you feeling hungry and craving for the foods you know are forbidden on your diet, we all know that when something is forbidden we want it all the more.

If you have put yourself on a calorie controlled diet that is too restrictive then you will feel hungry of course because your body isn’t getting the food and nutrients it needs.

Hunger will lead to irritability and with that failure is inevitable, therefore it is important not to restrict yourself too much and if you do stray a little then don’t punish yourself too severely just shrug it off and carry on with your diet.

There is no such thing as the perfect diet; dieting works differently from person to person we all lose weight at different rates and no one diet is more suitable for a person than another. Establishing healthy eating habits and plenty of willpower is the mainstay for any diet.