There are few subjects in the world that have had more written about them than how to lose weight. Sad, but true. People are simply obsessed with their weight, and are willing to try any ridiculous fad if it promises to help them shed those pounds and lose those unsightly inches.

At the moment, the fashion is for restricted-carbohydrate diets, like Atkins, the South Beach Diet and the GI Diet. These diets make foods like pasta and rice out to be the root of all evil, instead encouraging you to eat high-fat, high-protein foods like meat and dairy products. While this approach does result in weight loss for many people, its long-term health effects are, at best, unknown, with most nutritionists agreeing that such a diet would most probably be harmful if it was kept to for a long time.

In the end, the reason that people go so far to find ways of losing weight is that the one method that works is so difficult. You simply have to eat less food, and find time to exercise. Unfortunately for us, our bodies are addicted to food, and will do everything they can to manipulate us into eating more, not less its like trying to give up smoking, only theres no such thing as a food patch. More traditional weight-loss plans like diet clubs and slimming milkshakes can be effective at beating these urges, but only if you stick to them strictly.

One of the best non-fad ways to lose weight is to take up a sport as a hobby. Whether its running, football, tennis or whatever doesnt matter, as long as it gets you physically active regularly. Active people can eat huge amounts and still not get fat, as they are using all the energy every day and it only takes a surprisingly small amount of extra exercise to tip you from putting on a tiny amount of weight each day to losing a tiny amount of weight each day. Remember, the little things all add up over time.