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Obesity is one of most common health problems in our society. Many people struggle with their weight on a daily basis. Some people want to lose weight for cosmetic reasons, and others need to lose weight for health reasons.

Regardless of your reason for pursuing weight loss, you will likely be overwhelmed by the many different diet and surgical options available. There are a number of popular diet plans, some of which are helpful for weight loss, and some of which are just fads that aren't likely to help with long-term weight management.

Diet plans that encourage you to eat only certain types of foods with certain other types of foods, or encourage you to eliminate certain other foods from your diet fall under the category of fad diets. Such diets tend to be unhealthy and do not bring about lasting weight loss. Some people do experience initial weight loss success from following certain fad diets. However, it is impossible to follow a very structured and rigid diet forever, and people tend to very quickly re-gain any losses that come about from fad diets.

When seeking weight loss through diet, it is important to keep in mind that no matter what you eat, you will gain weight when you regularly take in more calories than you expend, and you will lose weight when you regularly expend more calories than you consume.

In spite of the many different suggested eating plans, this basic formula for diet and weight loss holds true. If you go on an all candy diet, but you burn off more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. If you go on an all juice diet and you don't burn off more calories than you consume, you will gain weight.

The best diet for weight loss is a balanced diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, and goes light on refined sugar and flour. Whole foods provide more nutrients than processed foods. When you are reducing calories, it is important to choose foods that give you the best nutritional bang for your buck. Your body needs foods from all of the major food groups to function properly and stay healthy.

For people who are significantly overweight and are not able to lose weight through traditional methods, there are a number of weight loss surgery options. Both gastric bypass and lap band weight loss surgeries have been used successfully by many people who need to lose significant amounts of weight.

Gastric bypass is a permanent surgical procedure that makes it physically impossible for people to consume large amounts of food. Following gastric bypass, a person is likely to drop large amounts of weight very quickly, do to the sudden drastic change in calories consumed. A more recent technology than gastric bypass, the lap band procedure is gaining in popularity because it is less painful, less invasive, and reversible.