If you feel that you would like to lose some weight and that joining a club is not for you  there are pleny of books, magazines and internet based diet plans available.

There is a vast choice available and they can vary widely in quality. Some can be very helpful and many are fad diets. Check out the tips below to see if the plan you wish to follow is a fad diet.

Since different appraoches suit different people, an internet or self-help book may be the approach that suits you best.

Its a fad diet if it .....

• recommends strange quantities of only one food e.g. grapefuit, meat,eggs,cabbage
• promotes magical foods to "burn" fat
• suggests rigid menus, limiting food choices
• advises food should only be eaten in certain combinations
• suggests rapid weight loss of more than two pounds per week
• doesn't address barriers to losing weight
• doesn't advise peole with medical conditions to seek medical advice before starting a diet.

Still tempted by the fad diet?

If you have tried to lose weight before, you may well have been tempted by fad diets or magic bullets - after all they do sound fantasic.

They also play on our deisre to lose weight very quickly. But we now know that this is unrealistic, and a key reason why people feel a failure when it comes to losing weight is beacuse they set unrealistic goals.

Fad diets with complicated or rigd rules are difficult to stick to for very long, and before you know it, any lost weight piles back on. This can also make people feel they have failed, but in fact it's the faddy diet that is the failure and not you !