Some of the diet plans that I tried that failed were Atkins, Weight Watchers, protein shakes, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet and the points diet.

I could not wrap myself around some of the stranger combination diets because they ultimately gave me indigestion, so I was unable to stay with them for any length of time. I did try doing the fasting thing, but it gave me massive amounts of problems with my bowls, so I couldn’t stay with it.

The most successful diet I have ever done, and believe me, I have tried them all, was exercise and eating sensibly. I did this when I was in my 20s and not only did I lose the weight but it stayed off for several of years. My food consisted of a list of healthy suggestions that I received from my doctor, and an ever faithful calorie counter.

Instead of using the heavy fatty foods, I was more careful and used the low calorie alternatives. Instead of using butter, I used low cal margarine. Instead of eating ice cream, I ate Weight Watchers ice cream.

I denied myself nothing, but if I slid and made up for it by watching what I ate at the next meal. I tried to keep to 1200 calories and it worked well. As far as exercise, yes I participated in several different types.

I did weights before bed for upper arm and strength, also did these belly fat exercises. I did cardio with the Jane Fonda work out tapes and the Cosmopolitan work out tapes and exercise for love handles. It helped burn a lot calories and helped me feel strong while I was working the diet.

The other good aspect of working out was that it sped up my metabolism. So, if I had a bad day, it didn’t send me into a back spin.

One day I finally decided to turn my life around and joined Weight Watchers. I learned how to read labels, watch my portion sizes, and exercise in moderation.

The meetings were extremely helpful in keeping me motivated. My leader was an inspiration and being around people dealing with the same weight issues as myself aided in my weight loss.

I lost 40 pounds almost exclusively through dieting. Exercise has never appealed to me and my only form of it consists of walking my dog.

I currently weigh 175 and my goal weight is 160. I hope to achieve this weight within the next six months.

My boyfriend is currently on deployment and a group of us women from the boat have decided to do the biggest loser. We are basically weighing ourselves at our monthly meetings and the woman who loses the most at the end of deployment wins a pot of about $300.

This time around I’m using the money, and the look of shock on my boyfriend’s face as my motivation. I have stepped up my walking and would like to join a gym once the weather gets cooler.

These last 15 lbs are going to be the hardest to lose. It’s more difficult to lose weight when you are alone, especially for someone who eats when she is bored.

I keep a lot of low-calorie snacks in the house in case I get the munchies.

You really need to rely on yourself and your personal self control to see through it to the end. Being healthy for my family is very important to me and I want to reach my goal weight before I start having children.

One must understand that in order to keep the weight off, you can’t go on a diet, you need to change your lifestyle. I continue to work on that and hope that the end result will come soon.

I had been married for 18 years at that time, and had gradually put on 8-10 lbs a year. I had tried gyms, personal trainers, nutritionist, walking, joined Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutraSystem, been to diet Dr.’s.

I could go on and on. I so desperately wanted to get back down to 155 (what I weighed when I got married).

My weight yo-yo’d so frequently, I’m surprised my health is as good as it is today. I was so depressed, my marriage was falling apart, I had no life except work. I began hearing about a weight loss surgery…Lap Band.

So I began searching all I could find on the internet. I finally located a Dr. with credentials that was to my satisfaction. Dr. Jaime Ponce in Dalton, GA. I contacted them to set up an appointment for consultation.

After I met him, I left with a different attitude. He offered me something nothing else had, a life time change, not a quick fix. I scheduled my surgery for November 6, 2006, by that time my weight was 246.

It has been 21 months I am down to 142 and a BMI of 21, (which had been 36). I don’t regularly exercise, but I must say I’m healthier today than I’ve ever been. My marriage has been restored and I thank God for this opportunity.

Insurance did not cover this, we had to dish out $20,000.00, but I’d probably spent that much over my life time of trying to lose weight anyway, so what was another 20???? This may not be everyone’s answer, but it was mine.

I follow a general routine, eating 2-3 small meals a day, sometimes I snack, but I love that feeling of being full. I had never had that before, just hunger.

Needless to say, my puppies have also lost weight since my surgery. Sometimes I think they feel like I don’t love them anymore, because when I eat, they don’t get anything, cause I eat all my small portion!

I have had success losing weight in the past with the Weight Watchers Core plan.

I lost about 50 pounds with this plan before getting pregnant. On Core, there is a list of foods you can eat “until satisfied”.

Anything else, you can eat, but you have to count points.

This plan worked well for me because I never felt tempted to starve myself, then binge on junk later.

It also motivated me to exercise, since workouts helped me earn points I could then use for non-Core foods.

I also like Weight Watchers because of the accountability involved. Each week, you have to show up and weigh in with your leader.

After a few weeks, you feel like your leader is becoming a friend, and not losing weight would disappoint her.

So when I would think about overeating, I would think about how I would feel at weigh in that week.

Unfortunately, this can backfire if you overeat anyway and then just don’t go to the meetings. As for exercise, I mostly walked.

I would like to lose around 20 pounds. I do not want to go back to being stick skinny because I have learned to embrace my curves, but I would like to be able to look in the mirror and be happy.

I think that it would also make it easier for me to find clothes and for them to fit like how they are supposing to.

I find myself buying clothes to hide behind. I do not think that I will diet but I would like to start eating and adopting a healthier lifestyle.

This is what I found when I used Weight Watchers ideas about 2 years ago.

Weight Watchers isn’t dieting but it is all about portion control. You can eat what you want but you have to be able to watch your portions.

When I used this before, I would walk around my neighborhood about 3 times a week and I was able to lose 10 pounds in no time.

It was like the pounds just literally melted away. I felt so much better so I would like to go back to that attitude that I had at that time. I was able to fit into clothes that I hadn’t been able to in months.

I tried a combination of starvation, diet pills, illegal speed, and the Atkins diet and while it worked, almost too well, I eventually developed heart palpitations and ended up spending two weeks in cardiac intensive care.

Once I started eating normally, all the weight came back plus about 20 extra pounds.

After the birth of my daughter, I wanted to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight so I started researching a more healthy way to lose weight.

I first tried the South Beach diet, but all I could find were cook books which listed a ton of recipes, but no real guidance on how to follow the diet.

Eventually I decided upon the Weight Watchers program after attending an introductory meeting at my place of employment. The program offered at work was quite expensive, so I decided to enroll in the online program, which was only $16.00 per month.

Weight Watchers flex plan was very easy to follow, and I was able to get all the support I needed online from the comfort of my own home. The online program materials are very thorough and I found many good tips and tricks on the online forums.

I did purchase a few of the Weight Watchers cookbooks, but eventually learned how to make over our family recipes so that I could eat the familiar foods I loved without all the fat and calories.

Basically, you are assigned a certain number of points based on your weight, and the points are calculated on each food/drink item by a combination of calories, fat, and fiber. As you lose weight, your daily points allowance is lowered until you reach your goal weight.

You can plan ahead and eat any food you want as long as you stay in your points range. You also get 35 flex points per week to use for a special treat you just have to have or a special dinner out.

As a plus to the Weight Watchers program, you are encouraged to drink water, eat healthy oils, take vitamins, and eat daily dairy servings.

After a while, foods I used to eat all the time, especially McDonalds burgers, tasted horrible and greasy and if I ate a high fat calorie meal it made me physically ill, which was just one more incentive to keep following the Weight Watchers program.

After a week or so into the program, Weight Watchers introduces activity points which can add to your daily points allowance, by doing such things as walking, biking, jogging, strength training, dancing, even housework. You are allowed to use your activity points to add to your daily points allowance.

As I have a back and shoulder injury, I started exercising by walking around our neighborhood and eventually worked out a route that covered three miles. I walked the neighborhood every other day, alternating with an exercise DVD called Walk off the Pounds.

For online members, Weight Watchers sends out all sorts of materials that offer support and recipes to help you through the holidays, and gives many ideas for recipes that are similar to familiar holiday dishes, but reworked into healthy recipes.

I can’t say enough good things about the support the Weight Watchers program offers. The Program recommends you lose no more than two pounds per week, and I reached my goal weight in a little over six months.

The maintenance program is really easy to follow as well. You add back about six points a day and monitor your weight at weekly weigh-ins and stay at that range as long as you don’t gain more than two pounds between weigh ins.

I feel that following the program helped teach me how to prepare healthy foods and eat reasonable portions.

Besides the fact that I look better and feel better about myself, the health benefits have been a real plus. My blood pressure normalized and my cholesterol levels are perfect.

Another plus, as I do all the cooking for the family, my husband also lost 40 pounds simply because he only ate the foods I prepared. Weight Watchers says it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change, and I could eat this way for the rest of my life.

After my third child in three years all of that changed. I have tried all kinds of diets but I tier of all of them.

The TWA airline diet, the MetaFast diet, Weight Watchers, counting calories, counting carbs, Akins diet, the Ice Cream diet, Dexatrim, Cabbage diet, Banana diet etc. On all them I lose some weight for awhile then I can no longer stay on the diet and all the weight comes back.

I tried Weight Watchers for while but I get tired of counting calories and tired of the food. Some of the food items Weight Watchers suggest are very good. They also have a recipe book that is some what helpful and scales to weigh your portions on.

But that is very tiring to do all the time and when you eat out it does not work so well. I know even some restaurants have now added Weight Watchers meals to their menus.

I have also tried MetaFast. I lost a lot of weight on that but how long can a person stick to a liquid diet. It is very hard to stay on a liquid diet when you have to cook for a family that still wants to eat.

Also some people on MetaFast have had health problems from it and even surgery. I am sixty eight years and I weight a little less than two hundred pounds.

I am female and I would like to lose about fifty pounds. But it is very hard to do. I have tried exercise also but it makes me hungry.

Now what good is that. I did strength and fitness exercises. It made me joints hurt and swell. I also tried playing golf for several years but it too is very hard on joints like bad knees and hip joints.

Then I got a reality check. I went to the doctor and heard that I need to make some changes. For a while I was in denial and continued enjoy every sweet and salty thing I could get my teeth into.

I guess I never saw the real me when I looked in the mirror until one day I was shopping with my daughter and discovered that I couldn’t fit into a size sixteen anymore and was going to have to go to the plus size department.

I am only five foot three inches and much too short to be wearing a size eighteen or larger. I went home that day and began my weight lose journey.

At first I tried to cut back on the sweets. I lost a few pounds. Then I joined Weight Watchers and began to see some changes in my body. I began to see signs of the girl I once was. After a friend joined Weight Watchers we began to walk a few days a week.

Before I knew it I was purchasing a treadmill and was walking three or more miles a day and even running at times. I can’t believe how good I felt.

I lost forty three pounds and went from needing a size 18 to buying a size 8. That was two years ago and I have let ten pounds grab a hold of me again.

I have had a great deal of stress in my life in the past six months and have the tendency to eat during stressful times. But I am hopeful this time.

I am back to Weight Watchers and I am continuing my walking routine and recording everything I eat so I have to be accountable otherwise it is too easy to go back to old habits.

Whenever I feel the urge to indulge, I find an activity to keep me busy, even if it is cleaning the bathroom. Those ten pounds will be gone before you know it.

I am a female who is approximately thirty seven years old. I wish to lose about 35 pounds, or seven five pound bags of sugar. When I say it that way, I feel even worse about myself!!!

I have tried Weight Watchers, but I have not been consistent. It is difficult trying to juggle a full time job, a family, a household to run, and a diet to manage. I realize I need to change my entire way of life.

Instead of reaching for that bowl of ice cream or that glass of wine when I am stressed out, I need to get up and exercise. It is difficult!!!

Exercise has never been something that comes easily to me…it has always been something I have had to work at. I was never the girl in high school who enthusiastically ran two miles around the track.

On the other hand, I did like the end result of burning calories and looking mighty fine, if I do say so myself.

A diet is difficult to follow for me for many reasons. For starters, I do not like to be restricted. I like to eat what I want, when I want, how much I want. I also find it challenging to prepare one meal for my husband and children and another for me.

My husband is a meat and potato kind of guy, actually just meat. He could eat meat all day every day and be quite content. I, on the other hand, hate meat. I mean, I really like chicken, but that is about it.