The skinny: You can choose from among more than 20 diet plans, including ones for diabetics and vegetarians. The optional meal delivery service, eDiets Fresh Prepared Meal Delivery, costs about $100 per week plus $20 shipping, and includes the online service. We looked at two plans from eDiets - one that offers support alone, and another with meal delivery.Ĭost: For the support-only plan, about $18 per month, billed to your credit card (with a $25 fee if you cancel within three months). It's economical and has a proven track record. Figure on about $80 more in the six-week maintenance phase.Ĭost per pound of weight loss: $6 to $10, not including food How much can you expect to lose? 1 to 2 pounds per weekĬost to lose 20 pounds: $120 to $200 with the monthly pass, including membership and 12 to 20 meetings. The company says members using its online tools in addition to attending meetings lost 50 percent more weight than those going to meetings alone. After that, you get free lifetime membership. To help members stay on track, Weight Watchers encourages them to attend meetings until they've stayed within 2 pounds of their goal weight for six weeks. Two years later, they had kept about half the weight off. A 2005 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed participants lost an average of about 5 percent of their body weight (10 pounds) in six months. That explains why Weight Watchers has impressive short-term results. A recent clinical study in the New England Journal of Medicine linked group counseling sessions to weight-loss success. "Weight Watchers has done a good job incorporating cognitive behavioral change to weight management," says Martin Binks, professor of psychology at Duke University Medical Center.ĭoes it work? Yes. Your point allowance is based on your weight, height, gender, age, and activity level. Nutritionists praise the portion-control points system: Each food is assigned points based on its serving size, calories, fiber, and fat and no foods are forbidden. The skinny: The oldest national weight-loss program, its members rave about the encouragement they get at weekly meetings led by former Weight Watchers dieters. If you won't go to meetings, the best online-only deal is the three-month $65 plan (with automatic monthly renewal at $16.95 thereafter). See the handy chart at the bottom of the page for a side-by-side comparison.Ĭost: Choose the $39.95 monthly pass, which includes unlimited meetings and online support. And the silver-spoon award undoubtedly goes to In The Zone Delivery, a white-glove service for people who'll spare no expense to drop the pounds. Nutrisystem is the least expensive meal delivery plan we reviewed ( Medifast is cheaper, but you have to provide one meal a day on your own). Our favorite for value and efficacy is Weight Watchers, designed to help you change your eating habits for good. We interviewed leading nutritionists and weight-loss professionals, pored through clinical studies, and tallied up membership fees and food costs to determine the ones most likely to help you slim down and to see how much you'd pay to drop 20 pounds. Three are support-only plans that don't require you to buy their food, and five are food-delivery plans. To find out, MoneyWatch analyzed eight of the biggest diet plans. Although a new FTC rule now requires testimonial ads to cite typical results, the looming question still remains: Which of these diet programs are worth your money? The TV ads, filled with celebrity endorsers and regular people holding out their enormous "old jeans" make the diet plans sound terribly tempting. If you've resolved to lose weight in 2010, you might be considering signing up for a commercial diet plan, such as Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, or Jenny Craig. With the holidays over, you may be looking down at the bulging evidence of too much merriment around your waistline. This story, by Jeanne Lee, originally appeared on CBS'
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