There are dozens of diets to help you lose weight fast.
According to CBS News, Americans spend about $35 billion on weight loss products each year, a factoid that goes a long ways toward explaining why there are so many differently packaged and marketed diets to choose from. Whether you want to lose 5 pounds or 50, there are a dozen diets just for you. The question is not so much if you can lose 50 pounds fast---with focused dedication and discipline, of course you can---but whether or not your idea of "fast" is based in reality and healthy eating. Starvation works, but it'll kill you eventually.
Medifast
Medifast is a low-calorie diet that aims to help you lose 2--5 pounds per week. The most popular version of Medifast is the "5 & 1" option that has the dieter replacing up to five meals daily with meal replacements and eating a single meal built around vegetables and lean meat. You eat every 2--3 hours and drink 64 oz. of water each day. Medifast sells 70 different prepackaged foods to help with meal replacements, with a variety of options such as shakes, soups, oatmeal, and scrambled eggs also functioning in place of a meal. The cost is estimated at $75 weekly. As with all extremely low-calorie diets, the difficulty arises when you've lost the weight you want to lose and are ready to maintain. You may struggle with the tendency to go hog-wild with calories. Additionally, it takes exceptional discipline to stay on a low-calorie diet long enough to lose a substantial amount of weight.
South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet has come to be known as the healthy version of Atkins. The two diets are similar in many respects, including a two-week induction phase where carbohydrates are limited. While many diets reduce the amount you eat, the South Beach Diet allows for three full meals a day, snacks, and eating until you're full. After the induction phase, South Beach focuses on separating good carbs from bad carbs. The initial two weeks should result in weight loss in the 8- to 13-pound range, with subsequent weeks leveling out at 1 to 2 pounds.
P90X
This 13-week program is designed to help dieters lose weight and gain muscle. It's broken down into three distinct phases, the first of which lasts four weeks (Fat Shredder) and focuses on eliminating carbohydrates to kick your body's fat-burning process into high gear. The P90X is not about only cutting foods and letting you lay around on the couch while you lose weight. This becomes apparent in phase 2 (Energy Booster), which brings complex carbohydrates back into meals while you ramp up exercise workouts. You can stay on this phase as long as you like and are losing weight. Phase 3 (Endurance Maximizer) is for those who want to go on to more high-intensity workouts.
Final Thoughts
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of diets that can help you lose 50 pounds quickly. Some may fit your lifestyle and personality better than others, but by far the most important factor in the weight loss equation is to ask yourself how badly do you want to lose the weight and how dedicated are you prepared to make it happen.
