What's the best program?

Almost every time I turn around, I seem to find another article or news story that focuses on which diet plan works best. Now Consumer Reports has 'weighed' in. They based their ratings on how easy the plan is to follow, the nutritional values, how long people stick with it, and how many pounds they lose. Getting off track for a minute, first of all I think calling these things 'diet' plans are a set up to failure. Doesn't everyone think of a diet as a temporary painful period of time where you starve or limit your food and then you lose weight and then you go back to what you were doing?

I think the bottom line is for any of these plans to work, we have to look at it as life style changes, not temporary torture, and the changes have to be ones we can live with. Who can go through life thinking 'I'll never have a brownie again'? The trick is to have just the one brownie and learn how to stop there.

Back to the study: not surprisingly, Weight Watchers came in at the top. I have had the best results with that program and I think it's partly to do with the fact that it's balanced and partly to do with the support from the meetings. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. I can't afford to go to them but I remember enough about the program to incorporate it into my eating plan.

The report will appear in the June issue but a lot of the details appear here.

While I was reading the article, I saw a link to a quiz about dining out. Ho-hum, I thought, this is going to be another one of those where they ask if you eat a lot of cheeseburgers or chicken or salad...but it wasn't at all. It was hard! But I learned some things! Check it out! It's an interactive quiz that appears on the same page as the article.