The diet claims to help people lose weight in just 10 days, but it is meant to be a life change diet to try to get people to eat more fresh, natural and unprocessed foods.

The basis of the diet revolves around 10 Power Foods which have extra nutritional benefits. These foods include broccoli, almonds, strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, blueberries, whole grains, spinach and grapes. In the book there are recipes that are based around the power foods. These power foods may cause a problem for some as you may not be able to get hold of all the ingredients where you live depending on the season.

The Sonoma diet has three sections or waves. The first wave lasts for 10 days and targets your weight by restricting calories and reducing sugar and fat intake. The second wave introduces more food. Wave 2 lasts until the weight is lost. You only start Wave 3 when you are ready for a life style change.

The Sonoma diet was tested on a group of 45 women and in 14 days each woman lost an average of 22 pounds. To me that sounds great, and much more than I have lost on the Paul McKenna diet…but I don’t really want to go back to a faddy diet.

Recent stats show that in Europe, 26% of people are actively trying to lose weight. In Europe there are 14 million people who are obese or overweight with a staggering 3 million of that figure children. That’s a lot of people….but in the USA up to 45% of women and 30% of men are dieting.Worldwide there are over 300 million people that are obese.

On the Atkins diet, as you may well know, your energy mainly comes from protein and fat, and this has raised concerns in the past about the risk of heart disease. A study has been performed by a team of researchers from Switzerland who have been comparing diets for the last few years in terms of weight loss and cholesterol levels.

They have reported that on average, people on the Atkins style diet lost 3.3kg more that those on low fat diets, but after 12 months there was no real difference. It was found though that the Atkins dieters had higher levels of cholesterol, including the low density lipoprotein bad cholesterol. This study supports the theory that the low carb, high fat/protein diet like the Atkins can cause long term complications, but does confirm that in the short term weight loss is significant. I used to be a regular Atkins dieter but knew in the back of my mind really that it couldn’t be good for you as you cut out what I would say are good carbs like fruit.

The new drug has been undergoing testing and trials over the last few years. The tests with Acomplia against a placebo has shown that it is effective and does show sustained weight loss after two years of taking the drug. The overweight adults who took Acomplia had lost significantly more weight than those not taking Acomplia. The test also showed that it had increased the levels of HDL cholesterol which is good for you.

Acomplia or Rimonabant works by reducing the appetite, blocking certain receptors in the brain. Those that take Acomplia can expect to lose 10% of their body weight in a year. All sounds good to me. I know that dieting isn’t the way to go, and Paul McKenna is right in what he says about changing the way we look at food, but to me if I wasn’t hungry then I wouldn’t eat, or if my appetite was surpressed I may eat less. Plus if all I have to do is remember to take a tablet everyday, and I already have to to balance my thyroid level, then am I onto a winner?

For more information on Acomplia try this website that helps you understand about buying Acomplia online

It has been the case for many years that the USA has always been considered as the fattest nation, but in Europe we are catching up. All of this despite the huge amounts of money being spent each year on dieting products. It is forecasted that the American waistline will continue to increase while they expect the amount spent on diet products to increase by 20% to be at $54bn by 2009, thats about £30bn. The USA has the greatest proportion of obese people compared to anywhere else in the world, and by 2009 almost 70% will be overweight.

But, and this is what we have to be careful of, is that the transatlantic weight gap is narrowing. Currently 48% of the European population is overweight, which is expected to rise above 50% by 2009. Having a normal BMI (Body Mass Index) will no longer be normal in Europe. In the UK already 40% of the population have a BMI of 25-30 which is classed as overweight. This global increase in weight is having the affect of boosting spending on diet foods, diet drinks and diet books.

In the diet food indusrty, the low fat and no fat foods make up the biggest proportion of new product launches. In 2005, 10.4% of new food products released claimed to be low in fat. New diets tend to turn into crazes as more people join in. In 2004 which was the height of the Atkins Diet, 14.1% of new food products introduced claimed to be low in carbs. The increase in these food products does go to show a trend towards long term consumer health. So why is it that there is an increase in the amount being spent on diet products, but the amount of overweight people is still set to increase? Is it because we just don’t stick to the diets? Generally we must have quite low willpower and motivation….that sounds about right!