We have all failed before with a restrictive diet plan. These are the diet plans that focus on a single food, periods of fasting, high carb, low carb. Some of these plans can also be downright dangerous as they can also lead to damage of our internal organs.

We are creatures that need to eat several times a day. So how can we be happy with a diet plan that constantly leaves us hungry? Moreover, if we do not enjoy the diet plan we are on how are we ever going to succeed?

Here are 10 top tips for choosing a successful diet plan:

1. Don’t get involved with any kind of extreme or fad dieting. Unless you are taking medical advice, it can be unhealthy or dangerous to remove certain food groups from our diet. A balanced diet provides us with all the vitamins and minerals we need to keep us healthy. Fad diets do not work in the long term.

2. Choose a diet that offers many food choices. We don’t need to restrict the kinds of food we normally eat. A diet plan that says you can eat certain foods in week 1, and then add another set of foods in week 2. However, if you gain weight you should go back to week 1. There’s very little chance we would ever make it to week 3.

3. We don’t have to Exercise with a diet plan to lose weight. Obviously we shouldn’t rule out exercise totally, everyone needs a certain amount of exercise to remain healthy apart from making us feel good. Exercise is necessary used to tone our bodies, not as a rigid part of our diet plan.

4. If someone sells a diet plan where you have to return week after week for more information, then they are simply making extra money from it. All the information we need should be there when we start the diet plan. If they have us paying week after week do they really want us to lose weight?

5. If the diet plan chosen gives you a target weight loss of 1 or 2 pounds a week. We should experience minimal or no hunger pangs. The diet should help us plan our meals and snacks correctly.

6. There is no such thing as a perfect diet plan simply because we are all different. A good diet plan should allow for those inevitable moments of weakness.

7. When we first start on a diet plan, we may initially lose 3, 4 maybe even 5 pounds a week. After the first week or two, we should aim to lose a steady 2 pounds a week. Any more than this could be unhealthy.

8. Being happy with a diet plan is necessary. If we struggle with our diet, it can become torturous. If we are not enjoying the food, we will become miserable and make the people close to us miserable. It is a long-term process to both lose the weight and keep it off. This means that we have to enjoy the foods allowed with the plan. If we don’t enjoy it we will fail.

9. Being happy with our diet plan also includes holiday eating. If it does not take into account our holidays, then the diet will be moved to the back of our minds. This alone can cause our diet to fail. Therefore, we need to enjoy the diet and the holidays.

10. Ultimately, whichever plan is selected, we should be in control, the diet should not control us. By this, I mean that your diet should meet our needs and requirements. Strict rules will only increase our chances of failure. Everyone has different needs and requirements. Therefore, you have to be able to customize a diet plan to meet ours. Then there is a good chance to succeed.