The Lunch Box Diet

What it is: The Lunch Box Diet was created by Simon Lovell, a personal trainer, and is designed to keep dieters from overeating during meals. Lovell’s approach to weight loss is to have dieters carry around a lunch box full of healthy foods that they can graze on throughout the day.

How it works: The diet is based on the idea that if we are constantly grazing on healthy foods, our blood sugar levels will stay even, preventing us from craving a salty or sweet snack mid-afternoon.

What you do: Dieters fill up a healthy lunch box that contains 60% vegetables, 30% protein and 10% dressing/condiments. Recommended foods include spinach, turkey breast, zucchini and asparagus. Dieters are discouraged from eating foods high in carbohydrates unless they lead a very active lifestyle. During the diet, you are permitted to eat a balanced breakfast, and at night, a balanced dinner, but you are only permitted to eat from your lunch box in between.

Benefits: The lunch box diet emphasizes eating vegetables and avoiding carbohydrates, which can help you lose weight. The diet is also flexible in terms of what foods you choose to include in your lunch box and is a good diet to use over a long period of time.

The Down Side: The diet does not include information on portion control. It may be hard for some dieters to plan their daily meals before leaving the house each day and can be cumbersome to tote your lunch box around.