Quick and dirty
Maybe bikini season has, once again, snuck up on you. Or maybe you vowed not to feel uncomfortable or self-conscious about the next holiday or special occasion. Whatever the reason, we all wish for a magic wand to shed pounds faster at one time or another.
While we regret to inform you that there is no magic wand, these 12 diets will help you lose significant weight quickly, according to a panel of experts who reviewed 24 plans for the US News Best Diets ranking. Just remember: short-term weight loss is clearly different from long-term weight loss and maintenance, which is more important for your health.
Noom
In the Noom Healthy Weight app, you log every meal and snack, as well as your daily weight and exercise. Your one-on-one coach engages and encourages you through the app’s messaging feature. You also connect with your Noom support group coaches and group members.
Caloric density is the nutritional foundation of the Noom program. A low-calorie diet that emphasizes fruits and vegetables is a reliable way to lose weight quickly. An emphasis on exercise and food tracking will also help. Noom says the average user will lose 15 pounds over the 16-week plan. Still, Noom prides itself on encouraging long-term weight loss for those motivated enough to stick with it.
Nutrition
According to Dr. Joel Fuhrman of New York, a nutritional diet is a diet that emphasizes eating plant-based, nutrient-dense foods that can help you lose weight and keep it off.
Sticking to any plant-based diet with no processed or added oil, salt or sugar is sure to result in short-term weight loss. Snacking is also discouraged, which would severely cut calorie intake for many Americans. The Rapid 20-Day Detox Program — one of three plans offered — is designed to help you lose 10 pounds in 20 days as you rid your diet of unhealthy foods.
Mayo Clinic Diet
The Mayo Clinic diet is a balanced diet that encourages a variety of foods and is highly adaptable to your lifestyle and food preferences. This is great for those who want a weight loss plan with a medical pedigree.
By sticking with the Mayo Clinic diet, you’re expected to shed six to 10 pounds in the first two weeks of the plan, the most restrictive, during which women consume an average of 1,200 calories a day and men get 1,600 calories. You can continue to lose one to two pounds weekly until you reach your goal weight.
South Beach Diet
Although the South Beach Diet can lead to rapid weight loss, its restrictions can make it harder for dieters to keep the pounds off, experts said.
The central premise of the South Beach Diet is choosing “good” carbs and fats. The carbohydrates you eat are a low glycemic index, which stabilizes blood glucose levels and increases satiety after a meal. The first phase, which revolves around protein and non-starchy vegetables, is almost certain to encourage weight loss. For those who successfully cut back to 50 grams of net carbs per day, the company reports an average loss of 8 to 13 pounds over those two weeks. Even in the second phase, once you start adding more carbohydrates to your menu, you can expect to lose 1 or 2 pounds a week.
Volumetrics diet
The volumetric diet emphasizes eating nutrient-dense foods with low-calorie density, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy. The plan has been praised for teaching dieters how to control portions and choose foods that are low in calories but keep you feeling fuller for longer.
By filling up on heavy foods with fewer calories (think carrot sticks instead of cashews), the volumetric diet says, you’re likely to lose significant weight in the first year. In general, diets rich in low-calorie dense foods have been shown to promote weight loss.
WeightWatchers Diet (WW)
WW — a plan that uses a point system to encourage followers to choose healthy, filling foods — claims you can shed up to 2 pounds a week. All in all, no foods are off limits: you can eat whatever you want – as long as you stick to your points budget. Among the studies, one found that WW participants lost 9.8 pounds after 12 weeks, and at a lower cost, compared to just 3 pounds for participants in a primary care-directed plan.
The backbone of this program is the WW App, a collaboration to provide practical tools and behavior-change techniques for support through expert-led virtual and in-person workshops. Our experts have endorsed its ability to deliver consistent weight loss results. Better yet? Those results will likely last, thanks to the program’s emphasis on a balanced diet and built-in support system.
The Jenny Craig Diet
Jenny Craig’s prepackaged meals and recipes help participants lose up to two pounds a week by limiting calories, fat and portions.
Jenny Craig is a structured diet plan based around prepackaged foods to manage calories, fat, and portion sizes. Jenny’s prepackaged meals and recipes also emphasize healthy eating, active lifestyles, and behavior modification. Personal trainers guide members on their journey from day one. According to the company, you’ll get support and motivation and learn how much you should be eating, what a balanced diet looks like and how to use that knowledge to achieve weight maintenance. And focusing on proper portion sizes and recognizing the urge to eat when not hungry can have a positive, long-term impact on well-being.
Atkins Diet
A big part of the appeal of the Atkins diet, which aims to burn fat by limiting carbs and packing in fat and protein, is its claimed rapid weight loss — as much as 15 pounds in two weeks, according to the company.
Starting with almost no carbohydrates, dieters progress through diet phases to achieve their goal weight. You will mainly eat proteins such as fish, beef, chicken, and pork. You should eat 4 to 6 ounces at each meal.
In short-term studies, weight loss and reduction in body fat are commonly reported, with significant reductions in abdominal fat and preservation of lean body mass. Most of this reduction in pounds is due to water loss, so it’s not the healthiest or most effective plan for long-term loss.
OPTAVIA Diet
Optavia, the brand from the team behind Medifast, is bound to lead to weight loss in many adults. It is a low-carbohydrate and low-calorie diet in which most of the vitamins, minerals, and fiber are provided through fortified meal replacements. The OPTAVIA diet is one of several plans that rely heavily on prepackaged foods, known as “fuel” for calorie restriction.
After all, you’ll likely be limited to 1,000 calories and five 100-calorie snacks a day from meals, whether shakes, bars, eggs, oatmeal, pancakes, pudding, soup, brownies, or cheese puffs. You’ll eat four to five prepackaged fuel and one or two low-carb meals daily, which you prepare yourself using foods from the grocery store.
Nutrient System
Nutrisystem is a commercial weight loss diet that follows a meal plan delivered to you, including the company’s prepackaged and portioned meals and snacks, and frozen and self-storage options. These are supplemented with some vegetables and other grocery extras that you shop for yourself. By outsourcing food management tasks, you don’t have to worry about portion control, food preparation, or meal times.
According to experts, the Nutrisystem is safer and easier to follow than many other diets. Pre-portioned, low-calorie meals can make the Nutrisystem particularly useful in early diets. While packaged meals can get stale over time, they eliminate a lot of the time and stress associated with meal planning and preparation.
Slimfast
Slimfast is designed to make calorie-cutting simple and fast for weight loss, with products like shakes, smoothies, and meal bars replacing two meals a day and snacks. But like most diets that do well in the fast weight loss category, SlimFast lacked in other departments like cardiovascular health and stability.
Slimfast is best for people who need to lose about 20 pounds, which should take eight to 10 weeks; Most people are likely to have trouble sticking to the diet for long periods of time. Still, many dieters use Slimfast products as occasional meal replacements to facilitate maintenance even after weight loss.
The number 1 keto diet
Butter, bacon, burgers, oh! Foods that contain high-fat foods like these are typical of the keto diet, an extremely low-carb, high-fat plan that aims to send you into ketosis, a state where your body is forced to burn fat, not sugar. Energy.
Although the keto diet has the potential for rapid weight loss, experts do not recommend it for most people because it lacks nutritional diversity and is not sustainable in the long term. In other words: follow at your own risk.