Confused with all the diets available out there? It’s no surprise. There are literally thousands of different approaches available on the market now for you to choose from that it can be very challenging to know which one is right for you.

Fortunately, amongst the clutter, there are some protocols that will help yield excellent results.

Let’s take a look at five popular diets that really work that do deserve your consideration. Use any one of these properly and you should have no problem seeing great results.

1. The Paleo Diet Plan
Grounded in solid nutritional principles, you can’t go wrong with the Paleo diet. This plan is based around eating as ‘caveman’ used to eat and will have you filling your plate full of lean meats, wild caught fish, oils, coconut, and avocado’s along with plenty of fresh vegetables. Fruits, nuts and seeds are allowed in moderation and all processed food as well as wheat are to be cut out.

Those following this plan often see stabilized energy levels, reduced hunger, and improved health.

2. The Mediterranean Diet
If you want a very balanced diet, the Mediterranean diet is for you. This diet encourages a high consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables along with fish and poultry. Red meat however is shunned on this plan as you are to only consume it a few times per week. It’s one diet that has been renounced for helping improve heart health, so if heart disease runs in your family, this is one diet you may wish to consider.

You’ll also consume plenty of healthy fats in this plan coming from oils, nuts, seeds, and avocado’s, along with moderate amounts of dairy. Once again, processed foods and sweets are kept to a minimum.

Just one warning: if you are looking to lose a significant amount of weight on this plan, you’ll want to keep your intake of whole grains slightly lower than the plan suggests. Whole grains provide a lot of additional calories and therefore may need to be reduced.

3. The If It Fits Your Macros Diet
The If It Fits Your Macros diet is a plan that’s rapidly catching on and also sometimes goes by the name of flexible dieting. This plan puts no foods as ‘off limits’, but rather, as long as you structure your day so that you meet your calorie, protein, carb, and dietary fat intake totals, anything is fair game.

If you’re someone who hates feeling restricted and likes flexibility throughout the day, you’ll probably fall in love with this plan. While it does require rigorous calorie and macro tracking, with all the apps and programs available today, this is easier than ever.

4. The New Atkins Diet
The New Atkins Diet is another smart plan you’ll want to check out. While the old Atkins diet did produce weight loss results in many who used it, it had the major problem of being too high in saturated fat and cholesterol for many, not to mention that it also shorted active individuals of the energy they needed from healthy carb sources.

The New Atkins diet revised this and now encourages a proper intake of the right fats along with lean proteins and a modest amount of carbohydrates that will meet the needs of everyone.

It’s still considered a lower carb approach, but one that is safe and healthy and will work for the vast majority of the population.

5. The South Beach Diet
Finally, the last popular diet that actually works is the South Beach Diet plan. This plan moves you through phases where the first phase is the most intense phase of the plan. After that, more foods are added and energy levels are kept up.

Some people may do best simply avoiding the highly restrictive first phase of this plan and just going straight into phase two. The good news is that this plan encourages you to eat plenty of healthy foods including lean protein sources coming from meat, fish and poultry along with healthy fats, low GI carb sources and fresh vegetables with a few fruits added in during the later parts of the program.

All in all, it’s a plan that teaches you how to use proper nutrition for life in a way that should allow you to maintain any weight loss you do see.

So if you are still on the hunt for a diet plan, consider these options. All of the above noted diets should help you get your nutritional intake up, keep hunger in check, and provide you with the nutritional know-how to sustain your new body weight over the long term.