Best Bets for Weight Loss in 2009

Weight loss seems to be on everyone's mind during those post-holiday weeks in early January, and who can blame us all for worrying? It seems like the entire month of December is spent on one nonstop smorgasboard of fattening, sugary, salty foods.

Sure, they taste good, but we end up paying in pounds (on our body, not the British currency) later on, and we all know that especially the older we get, those pounds go on easy, but become much harder to take off.

However, even if you think you have the most stubborn body fat, and you feel like losing weight takes more time than you'd like to waste on eating salads with no dressing and lean meats, rest assured that there are diets out there that anyone can lose weight on.

It just depends on what is the least painless for you personally. Do you hate carbs? Go on a low carb diet or carb conscious diet like the Zone or the South Beach Diet.

If you don't care for meats and proteins, you may want to opt for a vegetarian based diet, or even a vegan diet for that matter. These types of diets tend to rely mostly on whole grains, nuts and other sources of fiber and substance that don't involve any type of animal meat of animal byproducts.

What about those diets for people who don't like to cook, and need to have portion control and calorie control? Well, in this day and age of everything you could possibly want at the click of a button or movement of a computer mouse, you can even get healthy, reduced calorie, and portion controlled meals sent right to your door.

Although these options may not be something that some people consider cost effective, if you really stick to the menu of foods that are shipped to you, and don't veer off the menu and start spending money on fast food or restaurant foods, then you actually should find that you're spending about the same amount as you would have on the groceries and restaurant meals that you normally would be eating anyways.

For those that are a little more adventurous and not averse to the more "extreme" diets, there are fasting diets that some swear by not only to jump start their weight loss, but also to give them an internal "cleansing" of sorts.

Although these types of diets are criticized for their extremism, and some even decry them as harmful to the health of anyone who does them, there are devotees that believe these types of deprivation diets give them their health back, and more importantly, take the focus off food in their life for a while, allowing them to channel their creative efforts everywhere else.

There are always those good old stand by diets that I think everyone and their brother has tried at some point, like the cabbage soup diet, which is famed for it's use as a medical weight loss tool for those that are going to undergo some sort of surgical or medical procedure in the next few weeks.

It is known for it's quick results, but a lot of people complain that it not only gives them zero variety since that's all they can eat all day, but also that it gives them excess gas (which is of course embarrassing and not a desirable side effect of any diet).

My personal recommendation is that no matter what the type of diet you decide to try in 2009 to help you attain and maintain your ideal weight and gain your health back, you may want to buy a good set of self hypnosis CD's for weight loss.

These can not only help you to get the internal willpower you need to lose weight and keep on losing weight, but they also work on such a subliminal level that you don't even notice that you're exercising the correct behavior that allows you to lose weight, keep on losing, and maintain your ideal weight.