So you're ready to embark on a weight-loss journey. You want something fairly easy and painless - who doesn't? But when you decide to lose weight, it's important to examine diet plans to see if they fall into the "fad diet" category.

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The bottom line is if a diet isn't a way of eating that you can stick with for the long-term, then it probably isn't going to work for you. Other red flags to look for when determining whether a plan is a fad diet include characteristics such as eliminating entire food groups, like carbohydrates or fats. And if a diet restricts you to only a handful - or just one - type of food, like grapefruit or cabbage soup, then it's probably not going to work in the long-term to keep weight off. After all, you can't subsist on only a few types of food. If a plan promises huge weight loss - more than one to two pounds per week - then it's probably not only a fad diet, but also an unsafe one.