So learn to identify these six red flags:

1. Diets that promote or promise drastic weight loss.

When you start a diet, you can potentially drop a lot of weight during the first two weeks (some of which will be water weight). However, if you lose more than two pounds per week in the weeks that follow, you run the risk of losing “muscle mass,” and your metabolism will slow down in response. That’s why true health experts advocate losing weight slowly and gradually - so you melt away fat while sparing precious muscle.

2. Diets that claim to work because of special supplements, creams, or potions - no diet or exercise required!

Or diets that make you buy mega supplements in order to follow the program. If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

3. Diets that differ entirely from the way you currently eat (or like to eat).

If a plan is incompatible with your lifestyle, chances are slim you’ll stick with it.

4. Diets that are less than 1,000 calories.

Too difficult to sustain and can often leave you cranky, irritable, and with a bad headache. Not to mention hungry and lethargic.

5. Diets that claim they are effortless.

There’s no such animal. Losing weight takes focus and effort. Period.

6. Diets that cut out entire food groups, or focus on only a few foods.

Not realistic for the long haul; the sign of a plan you’re soon to go off.

From Joy’s Healthy Bite

Harley Pasternak is a leader in the fields of fitness and nutrition — well known for helping top Hollywood celebrities dramatically transform their bodies. Now he shares his “5-Factor” weight-loss secrets with the rest of us in two popular books!

5-Factor Diet

The 5-Factor Diet details a revolutionary plan based on scientific research. This unique eating plan will absolutely transform your body — and your life. You’ll be surprised to read that it doesn’t include weighing, measuring, or calorie counting. And it actually simplifies the way you eat! Plus, it requires you to cheat! Once a week, you can eat all your favorite foods (hello, dessert and pizza!). The best part? This is a realistic approach to weight loss that you can incorporate into your life.

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5-Factor Fitness

5-Factor Fitness will help you achieve the body you’ve always wanted in five short weeks! This plan actually encourages you to work out less and eat more. That’s right — sweat less and never go hungry! If you don’t believe it works, just take a look at Harley’s client list, which includes some of Hollywood’s most beautiful bodies. Harley has brought science to the gym, and he’ll teach you how 25-minute workouts can be more effective than hours spent at the gym.

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A typical restaurant meal contains 1000 to 2000 calories, and up to 100 fat grams (more than a stick of butter!) - Which makes eating out while eating healthy a hard combination. But thanks to a new helpful tool that lets you research nutritional and healthy meals in your own neighborhood, it’s no longer a problem. Healthy Dining Finder does the hard work by evaluating the nutritional content of restaurant meals across the United States.

Type in your zip code and the site generates a list of restaurants in your area with a nutritional table of each restaurant’s menu items that meet Healthy Dining’s requirements:

1. Entrées (or full meals) must include at least one of the following:

• Fruits and/or Vegetables
• Lean Protein (eg. skinless white meat poultry, fish/seafood, tofu, etc.), with no more than two red meat dishes per restaurant
• 100% Whole Grains

2. Menu items must meet the following criteria:

• Entrées (or full meals):
  1. 750 calories or less
  2. 25 grams of fat or less
  3. 8 grams of saturated fat or less
• Appetizers, side dishes and desserts:
  1. 250 calories or less
  2. 8 grams of fat or less
  3. 3 grams of saturated fat or less

3. Deep fried items (egg rolls, chicken fingers, tostada shells, etc.) are excluded from the website, except for very small amounts of garnishes, such as wonton strips.

Whether or not you have a computer to check out restaurants before dining, knowing what nutritionists look for when choosing a healthy menu can be helpful in making smart food choices.

• Calories: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses 2,000 calories per day as a reference level for nutrition labeling. Healthy Dining’s upper limit of 750 calories for one meal represents about 37% of total calories for the day - reasonable, because a restaurant meal is generally the largest of the day.

• Fat: The USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend that total fat be limited to 20 to 35% of calories. Assuming 2,000 calories per day, the recommended fat intake for a full day is between 44 and 78 grams. The Healthy Dining fat guideline for one meal is 25 grams or less.

• Saturated Fat: The USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend that saturated fat be limited to 10% of total calories. Assuming 2,000 calories per day, the maximum recommended saturated fat intake for a full day would be 22 grams. Healthy Dining’s saturated fat guideline for one meal is set at 8 grams or less of saturated fat for the meal, again assuming the restaurant meal accounts for the largest of the day’s meals.

Of note is that most of the menu items featured on the site do not meet the FDA criteria for “healthy.” The criteria for the website focus on calories, fat and saturated fat, whereas the FDA’s criteria for “healthy” also include cholesterol and sodium. However, values for sodium and cholesterol are posted, so that consumers can make informed choices.

Florida-based eDiets have been around since the early days of the Internet (started in 1996), and boast an incredible amount of members - over 1.8 million (over the duration of eDiets history). eDiets have been ranked as the #1 Most Trafficked Health, Fitness & Nutrition Site, and been voted “Best of the Web”in the diet and nutrition category by Forbes. Q3 2004 revenues were $11.8 million.

That said, what are they really like?
My impressions of signing up through their process were this:
eDiets are quite commercial - they have one of the biggest advertising budgets in the industry, and their site is heavy with graphic ads (everything from food to tampons). They also have an extensive shopping section where you can buy anything from fitness equipment to beauty products.

However what offsets this, is the incredible amount of quality content that is published within eDiets - most of it subscription-only. They have doctors, writers, nutritionists publishing many articles every day. It is truly a good place to get informed about diet and nutrition. The Internet has spoiled us with so much free information - but sometimes it is worth paying for that little bit extra.

Getting Your Profile

eDiets begins with a free diet profile, which assesses your current condition and then provides recommendations. It is at this point that they capture your email - and will send you one or more follow-up emails after completing the profile. There has been some complaint of spam from eDiets - although you can opt-out at any time (so calling it spam is inaccurate). After completing your profile, you can go ahead and subscribe (paying by credit card).

Their subscription prices are a bit confusing. You can select from varying options (the diet plan, a fitness component, and/or eDiets solutions - which seems to be access to the forums, to registered dietitians, and other content, there is also the eDiets Recipe Club). At it’s most basic, the diet plan portion works out to $2.99 per week. However the options were bewildering (see below).

What Makes eDiets Different?

One of the biggest differences between eDiets and all their competition is the huge array of popular diet programs available. As well as the basic eDiets Weight Loss program, you can also choose from popular diets (such as Atkins, Blood Type Diet, Perricone, Slim-Fast, etc). However the options are always changing as brand-name deals come and go. You can change your plan at any time, or mix and match various meal and menu options.

The message boards and forums at eDiets have long been thought of as the best in the industry. In 2004 many people were disappointed that access to these boards become priced out separately - however the net cost has remained the same.

As far as a fitness component, eDiets offer two fitness-based programs - their own eFitness product, and Get With The Program, an excellent program written by Oprah Winfrey’s former trainer Bob Greene.

Opinion

Anecdotally, eDiets works. A look around various opinion sites shows that people have lost weight with eDiets, and bad reviews are rare. The tools are good, but as time has gone on eDiets has been facing more and more competition in the online diet sector.

My take: If you know what you want to do (for example; you want to follow the Glycemic Impact Plan), then eDiets is the perfect means to do this. Menu plans, meals, recipes, motivation, will all help you succeed. However if you’re unsure about exactly how you are going to lose weight, you might find eDiets a bit overwhelming - something like DietWatch or SparkPeople might be a bit easier to handle.

What does eDiets offer?

POPULAR DIETS:
Mayo Clinic Plan
Glycemic Impact Diet
Atkins
eDiets Alternative to Jenny Craig
eDiets.com Weight Loss Plan
Bill Phillips’ Eating For Life
Slim-Fast Optima Diet
The Blood Type Diet
The Perricone Nutritional Face-lift
New Mediterranean Diet
Bob Greene’s Total Body Makeover (of Oprah Winfrey fame)
Trim Kids

OTHER DIETS:
Living With Type 2 Diabetes Plan
Heart Smart Plan
Low Sodium Plan
Cholesterol-Lowering Plan
High Fiber Plan
Hypoglycemia/Low Sugar Plan
Healthy Soy Plan
Vegetarian Diet
Lactose-Free Plan
Low Fat Diet Plan
Wheat-Free Meal Plan (added July 06)

Add-ons:
eDiets Solutions (online meetings, message boards, professional chats, etc - $1.99 per week)
eDiets Fitness Programs ($2.99 per week)
eDiets Recipe Club (access to 2,000 recipes for $2 per week)

Getting a complete package (diet + fitness + solutions) is expensive ($7.97 per week). In this case it may be better to use another online program that includes all these components at a more competitive price (although quality of content may not be as high).

Are eDiets Really Worth It?
Yes - they are. Even if only subscribing for a quarter, it is a great way to educate yourself on nutrition and a weight-maintaing lifestyle.