What is the best diet for weight loss?

This position holds that eliminating animal products is the best way to lose weight. It argues that cutting out meat — through veganism, vegetarianism or flexitarianism — forces a shift toward more nutritionally dense, lower-calorie foods, making weight loss easier to sustain.

This position holds that eliminating carbohydrates is the best way to lose weight. It argues cutting carbs underpins many popular diets for good reason, citing low-carb approaches such as keto, Atkins, Dukan, Paleo, and the carnivore diet as effective methods.

This position holds that lowering calorie intake is the surest route to weight loss, on the principle that you must burn more calories than you consume. It frames methods like mindful eating and intermittent fasting as effective because they ultimately cut net calories.

This position holds that lowering fat intake is the best way to lose weight. It argues the logic is straightforward—to lose body fat, you must first cut the fat in your food—pointing to ultra-low-fat diets as the most direct and effective route to shedding the pounds.

This position holds that reducing processed food is the best way to lose weight. It argues that modern society's reliance on processed foods drives high obesity rates, and that cutting them out—favouring whole-food approaches like the Mediterranean diet—leads to dramatic weight loss.

This position holds that weight loss does not come from counting and measuring nutrients. It argues there are many ways to lose weight that do not rest on nutritional metrics at all, pointing to approaches such as the raw food diet and the alkaline diet as alternatives.