Taking second place is the Jenny Craig Diet. The recipes and prepackaged meals help dieters closely monitor their portion, calorie, and fat intake, which make it super easy to stay on track—especially if cooking isn’t your jam. Also, despite the fact that the plan is based off eating packaged foods, Jenny Craig scored highly as being safe and healthy for dieters. (Work towards your weight loss goals with Women’s Health’s Look Better Naked DVD.)
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While you may not have heard of the diet taking bronze on this list, the Volumetrics Diet isn’t as complex as it may sound. The plan is based on the concept that people generally consume the same volume of food each day, despite however many calories are in a particular food. So if you’re going to eat a certain number of pounds of food in a day, it’s best to eat a higher volume of low-density foods—think a cup of carrots instead of a cup of chips (if only carrots tasted like chips…).
Surprisingly, trendy diets like the Whole30 Diet and the Paleo Diet were way at the bottom of the list. We’re talking spots 36 and 38 out of 39 diets, respectively. While you might have been toying with the idea of going Paleo or attempting a Whole30 challenge, a big reason these two came up short is because of their restrictiveness. Obvi, eliminating foods like dairy and bread (we can’t quit you, cheese) makes a diet hard to follow and can end in an epic weight-loss fail. Furthermore, these restrictive diets were also flagged as potentially unsafe. That’s because if you don’t consistently rely on lean meat, like chicken or fish, on the Paleo plan, you’re at risk of developing heart disease. Also, both these diets could lead to nutrient deficiency.
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So how is this list compiled exactly? According to U.S. News, their editors and reporters spent months pinpointing the most popular diets and then poured through medical journals and government reports to create in-depth profiles for each plan. Then, they sent these profiles to a panel of experts in diet, nutrition, obesity, food psychology, diabetes, and heart disease for seals of approval. Experts then rated each diet across the following categories: how easy it is to follow, its effectiveness toward short-term and long-term weight loss, its nutritional value, safety, and its potential for preventing or managing diabetes and heart disease.
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The bottom line: Though this list has expert approval and some science to back it up, the best diet to help you lose weight might not be included. You have to eat and exercise in a way that works for your life and your eating habits. That’s a recipe for weight loss that will last.