Are you looking to lose weight?
If you are, you’re probably researching your options so that you choose the most effective weight loss program and diet to reach your goals. Trying to lose weight is an effort many people struggle with. Whether it’s their genes or the fact that they are to hit the gym, losing weight can be a challenging thing in a person’s life. But once you start to shed the weight, you’ll start to get addicted to your efforts and want to continue on your weight loss journey.
Why People Want to Lose Weight
There are a number of reasons why people choose to lose weight. But regardless if it’s for medical reasons or because you want to look good in a bathing suit for vacation, trying to make the scale creep down can a complex and challenging task. Figuring out why you want to lose weight might help you choose the best weight loss program and diet for your goals. If you just want to get healthy, you might choose such a rigorous diet or program so that you can shed the weight over a longer period of time.
However, if you’re trying to lose weight for an upcoming event, vacation or because you want to look amazing at the beach for your next visit, then you might want something that gives you accelerated results. Finding the right effective weight loss program and diet for your needs and preferences will help you succeed so that you can achieve your goals. If you try a wrong one, you might not be as successful, and it can derail your weight loss plans.
Weight Loss Program and Diet Options
There are hundreds of different weight loss program and diet options. So, why do the thousands of people joining these programs fail when taking this path on their journey to lose weight? Let’s first take a look at the different types of plans:
Meal Replacement Weight Loss Programs
There are several different meal replacement weight loss programs to choose from out there, but they all have the same premise – they send you the foods you need to eat, and you have to stick to them. If you do, you can see amazing results! These programs usually involve low-calorie shakes, nutrition bars, meal and the like. You have to eat them at certain times, and you can’t deviate from the program or else you won’t lose as much as you want. These sorts of weight loss programs are effective for people who want to lose weight as fast as they can and don’t care about eating pre-packaged foods. However, these diets are usually really expensive and because they are quite costly, they usually only work for when someone needs to lose weight for a specific event and maintaining that weight loss after being on the program is almost impossible.
Atkins Diet
The Atkins Diet is a low-carb diet that aims to burn fat by decreasing the amount of carbs you eat and packing in lots of protein and fat. If done correctly, a person can lose up to 15 pounds in 14 days! While this sounds great, it is really challenging to follow since you have to track what you’re eating in order to minimize how many carbs you eat.
At the same time, the majority of weight loss is water weight because of the diet’s diuretic effect. Again, it’s an effective option for those looking to shed pounds fast, but if you are looking for something to have long-lasting results, this is not a good option. As soon as you stop the program, you’ll notice that the water weight does come back.
Keto Diet
You’ve probably heard a lot about the keto diet because it’s very popular right now. This diet consists of eating lots of high-fat foods and very little carbs in order to get your body into ketosis. This is a state in which your body burns fat instead of carbs for energy, helping you lose weight faster by just eating the correct foods.
Since you’re eating only certain items, the diet doesn’t have lots of nutritional variety, which makes it unsustainable for a long-term program. But you can lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time when done correctly. To make the diet easier, it’s best if you track what you eat because you’re not supposed to have more than 20g of carbs in order to put your body into ketosis. While the results of Keto sound amazing, you should realize that it might not be too great long term and there aren’t a lot of studies that have been done to show the long term effects of the diet. Sure, it’s important to cut down the calories, but you need to make sure that you are getting nutrients from the foods you are eating. Implementing superfoods into your diet is a great way to make guarantee that you are filling in any nutritional gaps and when you’re eating just meats and fatty foods, that becomes hard to accomplish.
Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is a weight loss program that uses a point system for users to follow. They provide you with a number of points you need to eat in a day and then you can track your food based on how many points they are. If they fall your designated points, then you can eat it. It’s a simple program and much more sustainable than many of the other diets since it allows you to eat a large variety of foods as long as they fit into your points system.
The plan has a proven track record and built-in support, as well as a handy app to keep track of your points! There is a subscription fee each month, however, it’s can be costly depending on the level of membership you choose. You also need to take time to go to meetings and get weighed, which isn’t appealing to a lot of people. Some people might not appreciate having to share their “successes or failures” with a large group. And while counting points might seem easy, it can get tedious. Many people who join WW find that they’ll join and lose interest after a few weeks – not a very effective way to lose weight and keep it off.
Paleo Diet
The paleo diet is all about eating the same foods that our ancestors ate before agriculture came around. So, eating only natural and pure things limits anything processed in your body. The diet requires you to eat lean protein, whole foods, fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds.
You totally avoid sugar, grains and dairy. While there are more flexible versions available that let you eat a bit more, many do strict paleo to not only lose weight but also reap the many health benefits. Over time, this can get expensive and certain dietary restrictions like no grains, dairy, or beans cuts out a lot of food options for vegetarians.
It is also not a good option for athletes, who need anywhere between three to six grams of carbs per pound of their body weight each day – which would be really hard if your only carb options are fruits and vegetables.
The O’Connor Health Center Way
At O’Connor Health Center in Los Altos, and San Jose, our weight loss program is not only approved the FDA and our patients, but our unique devices quickly remove fat without the need for drugs, surgery, or side effects. The devices we use for fat loss work individually to remove fat. The results are faster and greater than the sum of the individual device results.
The best thing about our program is that it is personalized. A personalized weight loss plan could be just the key you’ve been looking for to get the results you want. Our doctor supervised weight loss programs are customized to fit your individual goals, needs, and challenges.
When you work with O’Connor Health Center, you’ll not only change the way you look and feel, but you will change your life for the better! Give us a call at (650) 334-1010 to get started on your journey.