If you are looking for a way to lose weight, the diet programs you see advertised daily may seem like an appealing solution, giving you structure and focus. They certainly appear to yield fantastic results, judging from the many success stories they show you on TV and on their Web sites.

However, any diet plan, whether it is a brand name and a registered trademark or not will take a great deal of commitment. You must focus on changing your lifestyle and this includes counting calories and choosing proper foods as well as incorporating some exercise to augment the caloric deficit.

Well, this can be overwhelming. So where to start? Here’s something new.

There is a book, “No White at Night” by Dr. Bill Gavin, which reveals that some of the most well known name brand diet programs are sometimes only marginally useful due to the demands they make on your time and your patience that it is difficult to stick with them. Dr. Gavin instead suggests dietary changes that should produce measurable results for many people.

The basic rules of the natural diet change are quite simple in concept. The first rule is: “no white at night”. This is a reference to refined carbohydrates including bread, pasta, rice as well as any kind of dessert with refined sugar. So firstly you must eliminate the high calorie carbs at your night meal before bedtime. This is actually quite an easy way to dump many of your daily calories; cut out the refined carbohydrates which do not contribute nutritionally and lead instead to an accumulation of excess weight. Removing them from your last meal is a good way to make a positive change.

Some people feel that merely skipping meals would be a far better idea: it would be more drastic; and it would make things simpler too. This is actually a bad idea; the natural diet change is for people who are too tempted to raid the fridge from time to time when they are put on a regular name brand diet. With such people, starving and dinner deprivation would only fill them with an irresistible urge for an in-between-meals snack. The idea is to keep yourself regularly fed with three meals a day. Meals or snacks between meals aren’t used the same way by the body as regular meals are. They are considered “extra” by the body, and are turned into fat for storage.

Would you believe that according to Dr. Gavin’s book, three out of four people to come to a weight-loss clinic are skipping breakfast? That alone reveals that skipping meals is a poor weight management strategy. When you do eat your three meals a day, make sure that you include a good deal of protein in it. Proteins are basically the very opposite of carbs. Carbs are quickly digested for a quick burst of energy; proteins take time to digest; they fill you up, and keep you filled up until everything is properly digested. That should take six hours.

The next rule of the natural diet change is to stick with moderation. Cutting down the size of your meals is a great way to lose weight without getting your body all worked up over missing the meals it has come to expect. You may find online tools such as those on Fitday.com will help you keep track of what you eat. You can also do this manually by keeping a notebook, a diary, really of your daily food intake. This enables you to be accountable to yourself for what you eat and to examine whether or not you are really creating a caloric deficit needed to lose weight. In the final analysis, losing weight with an actual diet change like this is easier than anything a name brand type plan could ever do for you.

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Is a Brand Name Diet Necessary to Lose Weight?

If you’re looking around for help with how to lose weight fast then really sticking to some of the basics is often the way forward for most people. This is because pretty much opting for a fad diet might work in the short term, but once the weight has gone and you go back to your ‘normal’ eating patterns, the weight will surely come back.

With that said though, there are some really powerful ways to lose weight quickly and keep it off. To begin with if you are someone who is not eating a healthy diet then you should look closely at that and make some changes.

Fruits and vegetables have high water content and are great sources of natural fiber, so aim to eat at least five portions per day and this will kick start your weight loss. This is also why substituting one of your meals per day with a healthy fruit and vegetable juice, that you have juiced and blended yourself, can be a great way to drop pounds fast.

With that said, skipping meals without substituting them with a healthy and nutritional alternative is not the way to go to lose weight. Instead make sure that you are eating at least three healthy meals a day as this will keep your metabolism working throughout the day. Skipping a meal will slow down your metabolism and so the burning of fat will be reduced and your weight loss will also be reduced. Above all treat breakfast as the most important meal of the day as this is your first chance of the day to get your metabolism working.

It’s a fact that not everyone enjoys exercise, but if you’re looking to lose weight, then exercise is a must. The key here is to find a physical activity that you absolutely enjoy, that way when you don’t feel like you can go on, then the fact that you enjoy the activity will keep you going.

If you’re trying to lose weight rapidly for an upcoming event in your life: a wedding, a vacation or simply to fit into that gorgeous new dress, then keep that thought in your mind as a way to motivate yourself. Nothing will help you in your quest better than visualizing yourself miserable if you fail. On the back of that, see yourself succeeding and wearing that dress and how wonderful you will look and feel and you have a real and powerful tool to use in your favor.

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Above all, aim for natural and safe weight loss and you will not only achieve, but you will maintain what you have achieved and that’s the great reward when you learn how to lose weight fast.

Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet was featured on Good Morning America, and has generated quite a buzz today (Oct. 16, 2009). The Cookie Diet would seem to be a dieter’s dream come true, or is it? Find out more after the jump.

Here is the GMA story along with the video which has stirred such discussion today : Can You Shed Pounds on the Cookie Diet?

Actually there are several variations of this plan, all of which include specially formulated cookies which replace some of the meals consumed daily. As WebMD points out, the most well known of these re the Hollywood Cookie Diet, the Smart for Life diet, as well as the diet which has generated so much discussion today, which was developed in 1975 by Sanford Siegal, MD, an obesity physician in Miami Florida, who is the originator of this concept.

Here is a full product review: The Cookie Diet

See also the Miami Herald’s story: Popular cookie diet has roots in South Florida

What is of greatest concern is that the diet is a very low calorie diet ranging from 800-1,500 calories per day along with a recommendation that dieters take a multivitamin to make up for inevitable nutritional deficiencies. As with any diet of this type, the initial weight loss will occur, but keeping it off is another story.

So the question, does the diet have a track record of success or is it another gimmick, playing on our desires to stay in the comfort zone? The diet, which as noted dates back to 1975 continues to have its critics and its proponents as noted above.

Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet (Video)

As has been widely reported, Kirstie Alley former star of Fat Actress, and notable for her extremely public battle with weight gain and loss, has left Jenny Craig.

Kirstie Alley may have parted ways with Jenny Craig after a three-year relationship, but the actress is not leaving the weight-loss field, she tells PEOPLE exclusively.

In fact, Alley, 57, hopes to “develop and pilot my own weight-loss brand that I hope to launch in 2009,” she has announced in a statement.

Though she called her experience with Jenny Craig “extraordinary,” she says: “I want to create something new that will help millions of people end the seemingly never ending fatty-roller coaster ride.”

Scott Parker, VP of marketing for Jenny Craig, said Tuesday that “we are sorry that she did not accept our offer” to continue appearing in the company’s ad campaign, “but we wish her all the best in her future endeavors.”

The article continues, and includes a statement from Kirstie Alley. The new weight loss brand does not yet have a name, and NameWire Blog explores possible brand name options for Kirstie Alley.

Now, she has announced that she is the accidental role model for people who are struggling with the fatty roller coaster ride. Alley has a bevy of detractors, but many people support the idea of her striking out on her own, including the Diets in Review Blog. Her only problem might be that so many people liked her show Fat Actress, that her overweight persona might hurt her support for branding a weight loss product.

The actual brand name has not been announced, but I would suggest that she use her own name or a derivative of it. Kirstie Alley is somebody whose imperfections mirror our own, and she might just snag a niche market of people who are turned off by the saccharine perfection of other diet brands.

Kirstie’s would sort of be the diet brand for the rest of us.