(MONEY Magazine) -- If you're among the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese, shedding pounds is a nobrainer way to save. For example, "even losing 7% of your weight may lower blood pressure enough to erase the need for medication," says Cheryl Rock, a professor at the medical school at the University of California San Diego.

Problem is, losing weight and keeping it off isn't easy.

Sure, you can diet on your own for free. But research indicates it's harder for many people to stick with a DIY approach than with a more formal one. And some studies have shown DIYers lose less weight than people on structured plans.

The three major commercial programs -- Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Weight Watchers -- "are the only ones with [rigorous] randomized studies that confirm that they actually work," says Adam Tsai, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado.

While no study compares the effectiveness of the Big Three head to head, research shows that people lose weight on any of them: one to two pounds a week, the companies say.

So which one -- if any -- is right for you? The answer depends mostly on how much you're willing to pay for convenience and handholding.

The numbers below assume you plan to lose 25 pounds in six months and choose the most popular program options available.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, MONEY's price-per-pound estimates include the cost of everything you'll eat over those six months (assuming you spend $12 a day on food -- as does the average American with family income over $70,000 prorated for the two plans that supply some meals).

Pick: Weight Watchers (weightwatchers.com)

Price for six months: $240 for the Meetings plan (food not included)

Estimated price per pound lost: $97

You get a detailed diet plan that imposes certain limits, but within those you eat what you want.

Swap tips at weekly weigh-in meetings with fellow dieters.

Weight Watchers gives you lots of practice in creating low-calorie, portion-controlled meals. That's key to weight maintenance, notes Victor Stevens of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that after two years, Weight Watchers participants were six pounds lighter than their starting weight; DIYers had regained what they lost.

Pick: Nutrisystem (nutrisystem.com)

Price for six months: About $2,380 for women and $2,590 for men on the Select plan (includes some food)

Estimated price per pound lost: $130 to $139

Nutrisystem sends you prepackaged meals that comprise about 60% of what you eat; the rest you buy yourself.

Free counselor support is available via phone or online, but there are no scheduled get-togethers. That's a negative: Studies show that regular meetings help people lose.

Pick: Jenny Craig (jennycraig.com)

Price for six months: About $2,221 to $3,341 for the Premium plan (includes some food)

Estimated price per pound lost: $131 to $174

Like Nutrisystem, this program requires you to eat mostly its branded foods, supplemented with the regular stuff.

The main difference: Jenny includes weekly one-on-one counseling with an employee who shares things like exercise tips and recipes for when you're weaned off packaged meals. That's helpful, particularly if you crave personal attention.

But given the price of a truly personalized plan (see below), Jenny may not be the most cost-effective choice.

Pick: A dietitian-tailored plan

Price for six months: About $750 to $950, including nine monitoring meetings (food not included)

Estimated price per pound lost: $118 to $126

Louis Aronne, professor of medicine and obesity at Weill Cornell Medical Center, says a registered dietitian who specializes in weight control (find one at eatright.org) "is one of the best ways to spend your money."

The pro can custom-make a meal plan that factors in your food preferences and eating triggers, then meet with you regularly to track progress and do fine-tuning. (To save money, ask if your local hospital or university offers a group program overseen by a dietitian.)

No matter what, talk to your insurer and employer: "Many cover some of the cost of weight-loss programs or dietitian visits," says LuAnn Heinen of the National Business Group on Health.

And if a doctor recommends you lose weight to treat a medical condition, you can pay your share from your flexible spending account.  

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[WATCH]: Which Are The Best Fat Burning Foods For Dieters

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 10th, 2011 at 6:07 am and is filed under dietsforweightloss

The hCG diet is quite the controversial topic these days. With questions popping up on forums asking if anyone has tried it and what their success rate was, to people scouring the internet for information, the hCG diet has people talking. The biggest concern is whether or not the diet is safe.

Human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) is found in the bloodstream, and urine, of pregnant women and is responsible for several things during pregnancy. Most people know it as the hormone that, if present, causes pregnancy tests to show up as “positive.” One of the key things that hCG does in pregnant women is to make sure the baby receives all of the nutrition it needs to grow and thrive.

People on the hCG diet are given daily shots of the hCG hormone for 23 days of a 26 day cycle, “resting” on the last three days of the plan. Sometimes the treatment can last longer, however no plan lasts over 43 days. The reason for this is that scientists noted that after 40 injections of the hCG hormone, the body builds up a resistance to it and therefore needs a six week break in between treatments.

In addition to the hormone shots, dieters must cut their daily food intake to just 500 calories per day. Meals that are high in protein, low in carbohydrates, fat and starches are key. Proponents of the plan say that despite such a low caloric intake, there are no hunger pangs. Once the weight loss goal has been hit the treatment is stopped.

Opponents to the plan say that anyone who cuts their calorie consumption to 500 calories a day would lose weight. Those backing the hCG diet claim it is more about breaking bad eating habits. Given there are a lot of scams regarding the hCG diet out there, anyone considering trying this plan out should consult their doctor at length.

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If you’re about to begin a weight loss program, it’s wise to wonder which one works best. But you may be surprised to learn that it’s rare for popular diet programs to promote their true, average results.

Most popular diet products or programs use spokespeople, and focus on a single success story – sometimes of a celebrity – to promote the diet product’s quality. This rarely informs you of how well the diet plan works on average for its users. And those kinds of report or statistical data are hard to find.

With so much riding on a diet program’s success, it leaves you wondering why diet programs and products don’t do many studies. Unfortunately, it’s looking more like the reasons are because the results are less than impressive. Of the clinical studies we found from a variety of research journals, some diets seem to maintain only a precious few pounds of weight loss results after one or two years.

There are statistics and reports on what diets work best, but it takes some clever searching to find them. There aren’t a lot of diet studies relative to other research, but this article covers some of the clearest reports.

One of the diet programs best known for reporting its valid statistics is Weight Watchers. Because the participants in Weight Watchers weigh-in personally, getting the valid measurement data is somewhat easier than with other programs.

The British Medical Journal published a study in May of 2006, comparing the effectiveness of the Atkins diet, Weight Watchers, SlimFast and Rosemary Conley, (a U.K. diet). The waist measurements of the participants after eight weeks were as follows: Atkins users lost 2.63 inches on average, the Weight Watchers group lost 2.16 inches (average), SlimFast dieters lost 1.88 inches average, and the followers of the Rosemary Conley eating plan lost 1.77 inches average in the waist.

Participants in a pilot study of Zonital International’s Zburn fat burning product, created an average loss of 2.5 inches in waist measurements in just two weeks. By comparison, that’s a more aggressive loss than the results in the British study. Participants in the Zburn study experienced fat loss as measured by reduced body circumference measurements in several places, waist, hips, chest, neck and thighs.

One to two pounds per week is considered healthy weight loss by the CDC and FDA. Several of the programs in the British study, and the Zburn results created “healthy” weight loss for participants.

Additional studies on the subject of weight loss offer varying results measured in a variety of ways. Considering that muscle weighs more than fat, and exercise programs may be part of a weight loss effort, changes in body circumference measurements can be a great way of measuring results.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in February of 2006, in which various macro-nutrient types of diets were compared, such as high carb/low carb. This study did not compare brand name programs, just diet type. It turned out that reduced calorie diets were the only ones that resulted in meaningful weight loss, no matter what the macro nutrient focus. In other words, long-term, it was “low-calorie” that created success.

Taking into account info from a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, June 2007, the Daily Beast website ranked Volumetrics as #1 in effectiveness. The Volumetrics eating plan features lots of fruits and veggies, or food with high water volume content, giving these foods more “volume” and making the diet seem more filling.

CBS news featured a diet programs report which included information from a study published January 4, 2005 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In this CBS report, the study confirmed what you might already suspect — that reported statistics are rare for many diet programs and products, and what statistics are available may be surprisingly unimpressive when you compare them to the highlighted spokesperson’s results. Reported results for Weight Watchers were that participants lost approximately 5% of their initial weight in six months (or about 10 pounds), and two years later, they kept off about half of that. Many other diet plans that were popular, did not offer much data that could be confirmed.

A study by the American Dietetic Association published October 2007, ranked the nutritional value of 10 popular diets. This study ranked Ornish, Weight Watchers High Carbohydrate, and New Glucose Revolution as numbers one, two and three, respectively. These rankings were for nutritional content, however, and not ranking for weight loss success.

Few of the most popular commercial diet plans themselves – with the exception of Weight Watchers and Zburn – seem to offer any statistical evidence of how well they work on average or typically, from their own studies. The FTC is now requiring diet plans that use a spokesperson quoting their weight loss, to also disclose what “typical” results are, because those spokesperson results are very non-typical. Look for these required disclosures in the tiny, tiny fine print as you evaluate the best diet choice for you.

To do an internet search of diet results yourself, use a search engine and type in things like “published research studies – diets” or the diet product’s name, and combine it with “research” or “success statistics”. New studies are constantly happening, and it’s worth an updated search when you begin any diet plan.

Want to find out more about the best diet plans #1, then visit Oscar Vasquez’s site, zonital.com and learn how to choose the best all natural diet products #2 for your needs.

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Moving slightly away from diet pills to review the latest diet plan offering from Tesco. Aimed idealy at UK dieters Tesco