Top Weight Loss Programs
by Steve Richards on November 10, 2008
I though it would be helpful to share my mom’s experience with some of the top weight loss programs available.
The South Beach Diet
 The South Beach Diet is pretty popular. It is a diet plan started by a cardiologist from New York University named Arthur Agaston. The plan uses a technique which takes the body through different dieting phases - a similar approach of another popular plan from another doctor called the Atkins Diet. Both these plans focus on the main calorie sources of food energy your body uses including carbohydrates, fats and proteins. By eating only specific foods from these categories as described in early phases your body’s chemistry can change toward a preference of burning fat instead of carbohydrates so weight loss can occur. The last phase is a maintenance phase which keeps the weight off and encourages life long healthy eating.
The one thing I like about this approach to dieting is that it does include a focus on diabetic eating. For weight loss, I feel that result will vary. For example, my mom didn’t do very well with this approach but my brother did. There are now some pre-packaged South Beach diet meals available at the supermarket now, which I think is great because it’s always a good idea to eat healthier foods which are low on the glycemic index no matter which weight loss approach you are using.
NutriSystem
 My belief for weight loss is that proper eating will produce the fastest results. I continually told my mom this, and that she needed to focus on what she ate. Her biggest complaint to me was that she didn’t have time to prepare such healthy foods. It was almost to the point where I was going to come over and cook all of her meals like a personal chef because that would be the only way to get her to do it. Unfortunately, my work schedule prevented me from having the time to prepare and cook like that. Then my mom heard about NutriSystem and had me check it out. This was another program that had taken into account being diabetic, so I was happy about that. The best thing was that they prepared all the meals! It would cost money, but I thought it would be worth it. It turned out that my mom, who always wants food which tastes great, didn’t like the food so we cancelled the program. However, I do think that it would be able to produce good results as long as it is used consistently. This is another thing, like everything else, where results will probably vary depending on the person.
Medifast
 Medifast is another weight loss approach with diabetic consideration. My mom was all excited when she came to me with this one. Her friend was also diabetic and had used Medifast, and gotten such great results that she hardly had high blood sugar levels any more. I started researching it and I thought it was a good idea at first, but then I noticed that the shakes were soy based. I had heard different things about soy, mostly good but some bad. I didn’t want to take any chances so I decided we would skip trying Medifast. It may work well for some people, but I would advise checking with your doctor first before use. That should be done with any weight loss program anyway.
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