Slow Carb Diet
- The Slow Carb Diet is the brainchild of productivity guru Tim Ferriss, who lost 20 pounds of fat in 30 days on the program. The rules are simple -- avoid all carbs that are white or can be white, don't drink calories, take one “cheat day” per week and stick to a small pool of meals. Meals must consist of a lean protein, legumes and a portion of vegetables, and you can eat as much of these three groups as you like without needing to count calories.
Paleo Diet
- This diet is popular, if somewhat extreme. Food choices aim to loosely emulate the diet eaten by our caveman ancestors. This means cutting out all processed foods, especially grains and sugar, as well as avoiding dairy. Instead, the diet focuses on eating meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, oils, nuts and tubers. You'll naturally be eating fewer carbs on this diet, but it's not a low-carb plan per se, since you can eat fruit and starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes.
Precision Nutrition Calorie Control Guide
- The team at Precision Nutrition advocates a novel way of counting calories by using your hand as a guide to portion sizes. For women, each meal should consist of a source of protein the size of your palm, carbs the size of your fist, and fat the size of your thumb. Men should double these portions. Because your hand is roughly in proportion to the rest of you, this measurement automatically personalizes your caloric intake. Aim to eat three to four meals per day, and adjust your portions based on your rate of fat loss.
Get Shredded Diet
- John Berardi's Get Shredded Diet is extreme, but if you're looking to lose the last 10 pounds of fat hiding your abs, this program might be for you. Multiply your weight in pounds by 10 to get your daily calorie intake. Protein from whole food sources should make up 30 to 35 percent of your diet, carbs from fresh vegetables should compose 10 to 15 percent and fat 55 to 60 percent. As with the Slow Carb Diet, you get a cheat day, but this time it's every 14 days. During a cheat day, you must limit yourself to 3 to 3 1/2 times your normal amount of calories. Berardi also recommends you supplement with branched-chain amino acids, creatine, ZMA and a multivitamin.