As I am gearing up for my new company, new website, and new products, I’m coming across a lot of interesting material.  Researching weight loss methods to pass on to my readers and followers of How I Lost 25 Pounds in One Month has been very interesting indeed!  I have a full-fledged update article for you coming soon, and will have a book available this fall, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share these 10 methodologies with you.  (Uh-hum, they might not make the final cut of the book, if that tells you anything.) This is just a fun post.

Keep in mind that the way any fad diet works is that it temporarily cuts down on the number of calories you’re consuming. They might use a lot of other marketing hype or even legitimate references to the glycemic index and metabolism, or complicate things by adding exercise and daily metabolic rate calculations, but in the end, it’s all about calories burned versus calories consumed.  (MUCH more on this in an up-coming post.)

Also remember that it’s not about achieving a certain number necessarily, it’s about being happy with who you are, inside and out.  Without further ado . . .

10 Ways to Lose 5 Pounds Fast

1. The Caveman Diet.  Also known as the Paleolithic diet, this gluten-free diet is high in fruits, meat, and nuts, and encourages you to eat locally grown foods.  Removing refined sugar from your diet alone would eliminate 5 pounds for most of us pretty quickly.
2. The Vision Diet.  No one wants to eat something that looks disgusting.  (This would be the fad diet for you, Mark!) The main theory behind this one is that certain colors motivate hunger, while blue diminishes it.  So they sell blue sunglasses that you wear while you’re eating.  You’ll notice, there is no link to said glasses here.  (Wink-wink, nod-nod.)
3. The Chewing Diet.  My dental industry followers will love this one!  Chew your food 32 times before swallowing and lose weight.  The theory is that when you chew your food more thoroughly your appetite shrinks.  Just thinking about it makes my appetite shrink - how ’bout you?
4. The Raw Food Diet.  This one reminds me of the Caveman diet.  Cathy Wong has a good matter-of-fact article about it.  Not only would you lose weight just in the time it takes you to figure out what you can eat, the foods you’d be eating are typically lower in calories as well.  So the forked approached. OOOHHH - bad pun - sorry!
5. The Baby Food Diet.  This one would work well for those of you who like bland food.  I have a friend who had success on this one.  It only works for a little while though because you’ll soon tire of opening all those little jars!  But the idea is you’ll retrain your body to proper portion control.
6. The Master Cleanse.  There are several of these diets around that involve several days of drinking a liquid concoction and not eating solid food for about a week.  You have to be careful about calories, still, but it does work.
7. The Peanut-Butter Diet.  This one worked for me, even when I didn’t need it.  Several years ago I was in lingual orthodontic therapy and could eat nothing but peanut-butter.  I got down to a Size 0.  Later, when I saw the book in a bookstore, I said, “Well I know that diet works.”  The diet is actually a pretty good one and nutritionally sound, just not popular anymore.  But hey, the book is only a buck on Amazon and wouldn’t it be fun to drop a few pounds that way?
8. The Grapefruit Diet.  Eating half a grapefruit before every meal will help you eat less of the meal, or so they say, but the fine print indicates that the meal can only be around 800 calories.  There are several theories around why this works.  My mother tried it and I believe she did lose a few quick pounds, but it’s not sustainable.  Not for most people, anyway.  If you have GI problems or take Nexium or Prilosec, skip this one.
9. The Atkins Diet.  I still like (and use) this one for quick, short-term, fast weight loss.  Again, the way it works is by cutting back on your calories.  Protein packs fewer calories per gram of food eaten than fat or carbohydrates, so you can eat a reasonable amount, consumer fewer calories, and lose weight pretty quickly without feeling hungry.  This one is probably my favorite on this list.
10. The Morning Banana Diet.  On this diet, you are to eat a banana for breakfast with a glass of room-temperature water to boost metabolism, and then eat a normal lunch and dinner.  No snacks or desserts.  That’s it.  Pretty simple.  My problem is, I always have two brown bananas on my kitchen counter and no time to make banana bread!

I’d love to hear from you if you have another method to lose 5 pounds quickly, or if you’ve had success on one of these.  (But - and I say this with complete and total L-O-V-E- please don’t email me just to complain or ask a banal question - and if you think it might be banal, it is!)  To comment on this post, click the title and scroll to the bottom.

Until next time,
Live Joyfully!

UPDATE 8/7/2012 - The most common question I’m now getting is, “Are there any other systems out there that really work?  I don’t necessarily want to count calories.”  So after much research, I’ve found a site that reviews weight loss products and keeps us all updated.  I’ve signed on with them as an affiliate - that’s how much I believe in what they do.  Check them out and let me know what you think!

Posted under Motivation