Look for a safe, effective weight-loss program

It's tempting to buy into promises of rapid and dramatic weight loss, but a slow and steady approach is easier to maintain and usually beats fast weight loss for the long term. A weight loss of 0.5 to 2 pounds (0.2 to 0.9 kilograms) a week is the typical recommendation.

In some situations, faster weight loss can be safe if it's done right — such as a very low-calorie diet with medical supervision, or a brief quick-start phase of a healthy-eating plan.

Successful weight loss requires a long-term commitment to making healthy lifestyle changes in eating, exercise and behavior. Behavior modification is vital, and could have the greatest impact on your long-term weight-loss efforts.

Be sure to pick a plan you can live with. Look for these features:

• Flexibility. A flexible plan doesn't forbid certain foods or food groups, but instead includes a variety of foods from all the major food groups. A healthy diet includes vegetables and fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, lean protein sources, and nuts and seeds. A flexible plan allows an occasional, reasonable indulgence if you like. It should feature foods you can find in your local grocery store and that you enjoy eating. However, the plan should limit alcohol, sugary drinks and high-sugar sweets because the calories in them don't provide enough nutrients.
• Balance. Your plan should include adequate nutrients and calories. Eating large quantities of certain foods, such as grapefruit or meat; drastically cutting calories; or eliminating entire food groups, such as carbs, can cause nutritional problems. Safe and healthy diets do not require excessive vitamins or supplements.
• Likeability. A diet should include foods you like, that you would enjoy eating for life — not ones you can tolerate over the course of the plan. If you don't like the food on the plan, if the plan is overly restrictive or if it becomes boring, you probably won't stick to it, so long-term weight loss is unlikely.
• Activity. Your plan should include physical activity. Exercise plus fewer calories can help give your weight loss a boost. Exercise also offers numerous health benefits, including countering the muscle mass loss that occurs with weight loss. And exercise is an important factor in maintaining weight loss.