For me:

Fasting. I lost 80 pounds starving myself, but you can't do that forever, and I gained it back times 2 because I wrecked my metabolism and had no idea how to eat healthily.
Alli but I didn't really give it a fair chance. I would forget to take it half the time.
Fenphedrine (pill). Made me vomit. Tried it a few times and every time my heart raced, I couldn't sleep and I threw up. Did suppress my appetite, though

And in the category of did-but-didn't, there's Medifast. It actually works almost magically. If you follow the plan, you WILL lose 2-5 a week. However, like Sockerton said, it tastes like crap. I mean horrific. Half the food I could force down; the other half made me gag so bad I couldn't swallow it. I spent two months eating the same few "meals" over and over (hot chocolate, crunch bars, tomato soup, pretzels), and that is allowed since they're all nutritionally interchangeable, but I got so sick of it I can't stand to think about it anymore.

I couldn't ignore how well it worked, though, so now I'm following the Medifast plan without the Medifast food: 800-1000 calories, <100g carbs, >70g protein and 10-30g fat. It's working just like it did on Medifast, of course. It's a little tougher to follow because your food isn't all laid out and choices are involved, unlike Medifast, but it's worth it to avoid the sawdust-flavored goop they pass off as food. *shudder*

Fasting! Ya just gain it right back, ya know! It doesn’t work, you are constantly hungry and you want to eat everything. Even stuff you don’t like, you’ll eat, until your stomach it wayyyy out. Then you’ll be fat again. Don’t do it, it’s unhealthy for you!!yaknow.

What a great thread!! And a great example of what works for one may not for another, but I do see many repeats on the lists

Here's what didn't work for me:

- Susan powter- all you can eat potatoes, v low fat. Gained 5 lbs at 20yrs old.. If I tried it now id surely gain 15+

- dexatrim

- slim fast- couldnt swallow the "shakes"

- south beach- I lost on phase 1 but couldnt lose a lb when on phase 2. Also the dairy and beans seemed to stoke my appetite

- ww, never tried it but I never understood why a person would bother converting calories to points

- local wlc called simply fit or simply for life
Lost 20lbs and then got pregnant and stopped going as I felt the calorie level they were giving me was too low while pg, plus I hated how you were not allowed to make your own substitutions even if the calories, gi, fiber and everything else was the same ( they wanted you to be dependent on them)

-exercise without dietary changes- no impact on weight loss

- curves- same as above

- calorie counting- for the sole reason that cc alone would allow me to eat starch grain and sugar, thus triggeing cravings and making it hard to keep the cals low. Plus the more I obsessed with the number the more I wanted to eat!

- primal blueprint- not everyone can lose weight on 50g carbs and he makes no provision for metabolically resistant people.

- zone- never sure if my ratios were right, too many carbs


What has worked? Eliminating grain, starch and sugar.
When I eat those I crave, I overest, I binge and it's all bad.
When I stay very low on my carbs and get my carbs from veggies, I lose weight, have a low appetite, no cravings and dont binge.

This! This!

Wow! this is a great thread! I too have tried many things that did not work.

The 6 week body make over- most costly failure, great concept, sounded good just didn't work for me.
Diet pills of any kind- dexatrim Ally hydroxycut stackers.... u name i tried it. most helped w energy levels but then i would crash n burn, also forgot 2 take them most days
Fasting
vegan
exercise alone
cut calories alone

And last but not least crack the fat loss code. when i first attempted this one I ate sweets in place of meals was very over weight and never exersiced. I had 2 do the first week 2 times and only made it 2 week 4. How ever it got me started and got me thinking about food very differently. I constructed my own plan using many of the concepts from this book and went on to shed 40lbs in about 7 months. That was in 2009 and I have only just recently put back on aroun 10lbs. my fault completly tho. started eating sweets all the time again. Darn Holiday goodies

So any way I dusted off the old crack the code book last night and decided to give it another go. I have 20lbs I need to get rid of at least. I have been fighting this 20 for a year now on my own and I'm just thinking having a plan laid out for me and riding my diet of sugar is what I need to get started again!

Best of luck to all
Mandy

I just wanted to add that being a vegan / vegetarian is not a diet plan, it is a lifestyle choice and you can still be very unhealthy as either if you don't eat the right foods... which is why most people fail...

Things that haven't worked
- Weight Watchers
- Just trying to eat healthy without actually knowing what I am consuming
- Healthy Diet or Exercise alone, they must be together
- Slim Fast
- Super-low calorie
- Fasting

Things that have worked
- LA Weight Loss, I lost the majority of my weight on this plan but couldn't afford to continue
- Calorie Counting w/ exercise

What has not worked for me:
Atkins - too much meat & grease for this former vegetarian
Medifast - I lost 20+ pounds on it but regained it once I went back to real food. Also reawakened old binge eating/purging habits.
The Zone - way too complicated
Diet pills - made my heart race

What has worked:
Weight Watchers - lost 52 pounds on the Flex plan from 1999-2001 but dumbly stopped tracking my food and gained it back (d'oh!)

While I loved the quick weight loss of Medifast and the complete vitamin/mineral profile of it, the severe restrictions made me wacky. I need a plan where I can eat anything and just keep track of calories/Points.

I also exercise at least 30 minutes a day, mostly walking for right now, but also a bit of rowing, which I want to increase the time on.

What hasn't worked?

Hoodia
Jillian Michaels diet pills
Alli
Lean Cuisine & Smart Ones meals
Exercise without dietary restraint.
Diet teas
Dexatrim
Phentermine

writing this out just made me do the cash register thing in my head.
All of these were expensive failures.

hmmm...calorie counting has never worked for me because, well i'll admit it, i'm not good at it. i've tried it and i fall off the wagon too quickly. for me, i need something flexible yet somewhat structured. and i'm having success with weight watchers. i didn't get that with calorie counting, it didn't have enough structure for me, which leads to me not sticking to it. just saying. to each their own, please don't judge.

soooo what hasn't worked for me-
counting my own calories
south beach
atkins
just exercising
going to a nutritionist-i would gain it all back.

Didn't work:

Weight Watchers: Fantastic program until I got off of it and realized I had no idea how to eat without my beloved points system. I gained it all back very fast.

Special K diet: Lose 6 lbs in 2 weeks guaranteed. Yeah, because you starve yourself/go insane all day, then consume all your calories in one meal. I just couldn't stick to it.

Dietician: She told me how to eat healthy, I learned a lot about my portion sizes and what was adequate. This didn't work for me because I just couldn't stick to it. I couldn't eat all those darn foods she wanted me to, and I ended up giving up and going for some McD's.

Running: Yeah, never has worked. Or unguided weightlifting/cardio/etc of any kind. I just can't keep myself interested.

Wow, what a brilliant thread

My not worked is:

Atkins: Did this a lot of years ago and it got masses of weight off, but of course it came back on as I could not keep it as a lifestyle and I started drooling at the sight of an orange and what about my ice-cream

Fasting: This worked brilliantly too, but when the eating starts again it all goes back on.


Low Fat: Did not lose much and it made my body feel like a shrived prune

Shakes: Fine if I didn't mind feeling permanently hungry, which I did!

WW: Gained weight

Low-carb: A bit like giving me just one lick of the ice-cream cone, it just won't stop there, love my carbs too much

Juice: Lost weight alright, but the urge to bite into something was too overpowering.

calorie-counting: It does work, but I got tired of having to find out how many were in the food and ended up just eating limited foods because I could not be bothered/find time to count. Embarassing and reprehensible, but true.

I came to 3fatchicks for some ideas which it is very full of, thank you all and I am hoping I can find something to help me. I cannot work out until they get my foot right but I do some crunches and lift a few weights but there is not a lot of Ooomph as I very much miss my walking and hiking which I have not been able to do for nearly a year. I have never tried any pills as I am a coward and just afraid they might do something bad
Right now I am trying hard to replace some of my too many carbs with protein.
The best thing I have learned so far is from this thread which tells me that each person will find what suits themselves and their lifestyles eventually and it is just a matter of keeping going and not giving up.

Thank you

Actually, almost everything I have tried has "worked".

I lost about 80 pounds in 6 months doing Atkins. I was diagnosed with PCOS 3 years ago, low carb was what the doc suggested and it worked well and quickly for me.

I lost 35 pounds in 2 months using Phentermine.

I lost a good bit of weight when I was around 18 using Metabolife.

About 10 years ago I lost 70-80 pounds using an ephedra product called Nature's Solution.

I have taken a plethora of OTC diet pills, I would venture to say I have tried dozens. Most have made me feel like crap. I am a very cost conscious person-okay, I'm a cheapskate-and normally I would run out of the bottle and just not buy any more for awhile because I just didn't want to feel foolish about spending that money. Atleast for a few months, when I'd forget said feelings and get desperate enough to try the next new thing.

Joined a gym once and went religiously 5 times a week, 2 hours a day. Lost 20 pounds in 8 weeks.

I lost the weight from two of my pregnancies-I gained 75 pounds each of the 3 times I was pregnant-the first two times before my child made the 6 month old mark with plain old restriction/starvation. Every time I ate like there was no tomorrow for 9 months, and then immediately after birth I would go into a deep depression about it.....and the eating disorder habits would ensue. Crazy stuff like eating only eating one thing, like a bowl of cereal or a sandwich for the entire day. It was surprisingly easy to starve myself being so busy and depressed, and with the distraction of a newborn.

I have gained and lost literally hundreds of pounds over and over again, struggling with this since I was a teenager. Since having my youngest child 5 years ago, the only thing that has budged a pound was Atkins.
Even though I'm not much of a meat eater I could live with it while I was melting away. I have willpower of steel while the numbers are going down. But once the thrill of losing it was gone, so was the motivation. There was no way I could live with that kind of restriction permanently.

Unfortunately each of these things worked while I did them. My real problem is that as soon as it was over, each time I gained back every ounce.


I'm not giving up!!!!!

My latest (and God willing, my last) trial is Weight Watchers. I've been doing it without cheating for almost 6 weeks and have lost 18 pounds. Of everything I have tried, this seems to be the one that would be easiest for me to maintain as a lifetime change. I don't feel restricted or hungry. I get to feel like I can reasonably splurge-even happily PLAN a splurge-when the desire strikes and not feel horribly guilty about going off plan.

Interesting thread idea.

Weight Watches---It works! But, only if you follow it. When I was on plan I lost consistently and felt good. However I got to a point where I could not afford the meetings and even buying healthier food was costly so I stopped.

Slim-Fast- Not enough variety.

Atkins- I am not a vegetarian but I rarely eat meat so this did NOT work for me.

Phentermine- Works wonders for me. The trick is that I have to remind myself to eat. If I am not careful I can easily go the whole day with a yogurt and nothing more. I recently started taking it again and am paying a lot more attention to eating. The last time I took it I lost tons of weight rather quickly but slowly gained it back after stopping. I think this is because I rarely ate while on it and did not learn any good habits. I was essentially starving myself without feeling starving.

Nutri-System- I tried it in HS and one it cost too much (at the time I didn't realize that you also had to purchase things outside of the meals that were delivered) and it tasted like crap. It is possible that the system has since improved but it did not work for me.

i tried this when it first came out and didn't lose any weight the tablets were the size of horse pills and tasted really bad....not sure if it has improved or not but would not go there again

Mini-meals: Did not work for me! Now that I'm calorie counting I realize the each "mini" meal was actually a full meal!

Calorie counting: Works - though I was very stubborn about doing this. I found calorie count at about.com (free to use) and for about a month or so logged in everything - including exercise. It did all the calculations - from telling me how many calories needed to lose weight to calculating daily minerals consumed. Found out I eat WAY to much sodium, even though I am very careful with it.

Dr. Beck - The Diet Soution: Cognitive Therapy works! I am not hungry - This urge will pass - I don't really want to eat this - I CAN wait until my next sceduled meal, I will NOT die of hunger... (all those "mini-meals" set my "eating" shedule to every 2-3 hours - OUCH)

Think Yourself Thin - Self Hypnosis works! This book is similar to Dr. Beck's, but also contains a hypnosis CD. I listen to the whole thing once or twice a day, as needed. Usually when I'm in bed at night, and I'll listen to whichever section I need in the morning before I get out of bed.