You’ve set out on a great adventure, finding the right diet for you. And it is a great adventure, given all the popular and highly publicized diets available today. It’s an adventure worth taking.

Finding the right approach most appropriate for your needs and lifestyle will increase the chances for long-term success, and not a short-term fix. Once you begin your search, you’ll immediately realize each has its proponents, and each has potential benefits and downsides.

Your Needs, Lifestyle, Life Stage

Here are 12 suggestions to help you find the right diet for your needs, your lifestyle, and your stage in life.

1. Sit down and define your goals, what you want to accomplish through dieting. Do you want to lose a few pounds so you’ll look and feel better? Or do you want to initiate a healthy lifestyle that will lead to your long-term wellness?

2. Before you begin your search, discuss your intentions with your doctor. He or she will assess your overall health and give you advice on how to proceed given your body type, age, metabolism, and health status.

3. Think about your lifestyle. Are you somebody who is always on the go? Do you have time to prepare meals? Are you single or married with children? Do you travel a lot?

4. Look for a diet plan that includes tools to help you set specific goals and objectives? This will keep you motivated and help you hold yourself accountable.

5. When thinking about dieting, think in terms of a having a plan, one which also includes some form of exercise appropriate for your health and age. Once again, discuss you plans with your doctor.

6. Choose a diet that gives you choices and flexibility, one you can adapt to your lifestyle, and your taste preferences. Variety is the spice of life and dieting. It’ll keep you interested and motivated.

7. Regardless of the diet you choose, experts generally agree it should include food from the different food groups, and foods that give you essential nutrients, without using supplements.

8. Pun intended: Look beyond all the sizzle and consider the steak. Research what the credentialed experts say about the diet. Look at the available scientific evidence to support any claims. Who created the diet? What is their background?

9. Remember, weight loss is determined by calorie control and balance. Calorie balance means calories in equal calories out. Weight loss occurs when calories out is greater than calories in. Of course, exercise also plays a role.

10. Take note of any fasting the diet recommends. Not all fasting plans are created equal. Fasting has its positive and negative sides. It can provide short-term benefits like weight loss, but can have harmful long-term effects depending on your health status. Again, it's important to consult your doctor.

11. You’ll be tempted to ask family and friends about diets they used and what worked and didn’t work. Keep in mind everyone’s physical, mental, and emotional dimensions are different. Their advice is no substitute for you doing your own homework.

12. Ultimately, the best diet for you is the one to which you will stay committed and transition into a healthy lifestyle. Make sure the diet plan you choose, has a maintenance dimension.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

If you’ve set out on that great adventure to find the right diet for you, or you're planning to begin your quest, commit the time and effort to find the right approach most appropriate for your needs and lifestyle.

Once you find the right diet and exercise combination, keep your eye on the prize, long-term change and maintenance of a healthy lifestyle, not a short-term fix.

As a Christian, your ultimate goal should be taking care of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Additional reading:

How to Choose Between Equally Good Choices

Ready to Enjoy a Breakfast of Christians?

Listen to God's Words

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." (Genesis 1:29)

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Also read: Ecclesiastes 3:13, Daniel 1:12, 1 Corinthians 6:12

In the Words of Others

"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people." Orson Welles

"You can be the most beautiful person on earth, and if you don't have a fitness or diet routine, you won't be beautiful." Martha Stewart

"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." Mark Twain

Think About It

• If you plan on searching for a diet plan or already begun your search, have you identified what you want to accomplish? Yes or no, write a short sentence or two regarding your goals and objectives.

• Describe factors that will determine the type of diet plan you choose, including lifestyle, family life, career and work.

• Once you've begun your search after consulting you doctor, identity two or three approaches to compare. Use the above points to make the comparison. Then go before the Holy Spirit for guidance and strength.