Popular fad diets come and go as easily as a summer's breeze. Some may stick around for a bit, but that's rare in the world of quick weight loss diets. They may catch on due to celebrity endorsement, clever advertising, even a well-thought out plan. Nevertheless, most diets fall into one of four fad categories: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, liquid or detoxifying.
Atkins
Atkins is a low-carbohydrate diet that focuses on lean protein for health. It includes exercise and balanced meals as part of a four step plan. There is the jump-start, weight loss, preparation and life phases. It is designed for both short and long term goals.
LA Weight Loss
LA Weight loss is a plan that focuses on portion control and general nutrition more than low carbs or fat. It uses counselors to help motivate and guide you. Exercise is a big part of the plan and, with portion control, the main weight loss method.
South Beach
The South Beach diet is a low-fat plan designed in three stages. The first stage is to eliminate cravings, the second to lose weight and the third to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It is designed for long-term, even lifelong use, as opposed to a short one week crash diet.
The Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet is a mix of low-fat, low-carb, liquid and detox diets all wrapped into a very bland soup. You eat as much of the soup as you want while following 7 steps, one a day, of eating different foods. Portion control is completely ignored and it all has to do with nutritional combinations.
The Juice Diet
The juice diet has been around for ages, going in and out of popularity frequently. It's a liquid diet that gives you nutrients from juice, but allows no solid foods. It obviously has little value as a long term plan and is only useful as a crash diet. By changing a few ingredients in the juice, it can also become a detoxifying diet.
The Lemonade Diet
The extreme detox, the lemonade diet, is a little misleading. The lemonade is actually a mixture of water, lemon, maple syrup and red pepper. It is supposed to scrub all the gunk out of your system and leave you healthy. It is of no use in the long term and only works as a crash diet.
The Zone
The zone diet is all about the way food affects the body. It tends to be a low-fat focused plan. It also focuses on what you eat and how long you go between meals. Exercise is important, but of far less importance than general nutrition.
 | Different diet plans yield different results for everyone. There is no single perfect plan out there, but you can learn how to choose the right diet plan for you. |
 | The grapefruit diet meal plan incorporates fats, certain vegetables and grapefruit into a meal plan that suggests you can lose up to 10 pounds in 14 days. |
 | The Fat Smash Diet plan is less a quick fix, more a lifestyle change when it comes to food and exercise. |
If you want to follow a low fat diet plan, you will be taking on one of the healthiest diets around, as long as you refrain from going overboard. |
The Zone diet plan is not so much a revolutionary diet plan as a highly tuned plan that focuses on food's effect on your body and insulin levels. |
