Best Commercial Diet Plans
If you're considering a diet, brand-name diet programs like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Slim-Fast might come to mind, but there are others. Experts who rated the 12 diet plans below for U.S. News found wide differences in effectiveness. Among the qualities considered by the experts were each diet's ability to deliver weight loss, provide good nutrition and safety, and be relatively easy to follow.
Weight Watchers Diet
Weight Watchers is the top commercial diet, earning relatively high marks in all areas of assessment. Experts said it is safe, nutritious, and easy to follow. “In terms of commercial weight-loss plans, this is as good as it gets,” one said.
Jenny Craig Diet
Jenny Craig did almost as well. It garnered particularly good ratings from experts for enabling rapid weight loss and being easy to follow. Some experts criticized what they felt was overreliance on packaged meals, high cost, and challenges faced by followers in restaurants and other social dining situations.
Biggest Loser Diet
Experts were impressed by the diet’s ability to deliver short-term weight loss and by its safety, nutritional soundness, and value as a diabetes or heart diet. They would have liked more information about effectiveness. “It’s hard to judge this diet based on very limited data,” said one expert.
Slim-Fast Diet
Slim-Fast ranked well against other commercial diets. “If you’re looking for quick, short-term weight loss, this is the perfect diet,” one expert said. “It takes all the ‘thought’ out of weight loss. You just have to drink the shakes.” That’s also a potential downside, since some panelists thought the diet can become monotonous and felt that dieters don’t learn how to eat for long-term weight maintenance.
Flat Belly Diet
The diet pulled in strong scores in nutrition, and safety. Experts rated it slightly above average for how easy it is to follow and slightly below average for ability to prevent or manage diabetes and heart disease. One expert said the plan’s focus on eating a certain amount of monounsaturated fatty acids with each meal is based on “faulty logic.”
Nutrisystem Diet
Nutrition, safety, and better-than-average ease of compliance are Nutrisystem’s strongest areas, according to experts. The diet’s scores in other categories were largely below average.
Abs Diet
The Abs diet stands solidly in the middle of its commercial counterparts. While it incorporates “many of the principles for effective weight loss,” according to one expert, another commented that “there is no research behind this plan.” As a group, experts rated it near the back of the pack in ability to sustain long-term weight loss.
South Beach Diet
Neither was South Beach a standout. While one expert called it a “healthier version of a carbohydrate-controlled diet,” and it received a high mark for short-term weight loss, panelists weren’t fond of its restrictive requirements. We found few studies that support claims of effectiveness.
Zone Diet
Experts found the diet mediocre relative to the other commercial programs. It emphasizes eating precise proportions of each type of calorie source—40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat—an approach many experts dismissed as healthy but unrealistically demanding. As one put it, “research has not found anything miraculous in this nutrient breakdown.”
Medifast Diet
Medifast’s mainstream adult program earned respectable ratings as a short-term weight-loss diet, but the experts found that it left much to be desired in several other measures, among them how easy it is to follow.
Best Diets Overall
Best Weight-Loss Diets
Best Diabetes Diets
Best Heart-Healthy Diets
Best Diets for Healthy Eating
Easiest Diets to Follow
