Dieting means following a pre-designed pattern of food intake in order to attain certain specific short-term goals. Dieting must not be confused with a more basic and thorough concept of diet regulation whereby one tries to shape one's general habit of nutritional intake so as to derive long term health benefits. For instance, a vegan prefers a diet entirely bereft of animal products. In his diet even milk has no place. However, this is not 'dieting' despite being a form of controlled and regulated food intake.

The commonest objective of dieting is weight loss, and it is for this reason primarily that so many people around the globe practice it.

To begin with, a weight loss program restricts the intake of certain specific foods in order to achieve reduction in body weight. Now, this has no general application, for no two human bodies are exactly alike.

Therefore, if something works for one, it may not work for another at all. The difference basically lies in individual metabolisms and lifestyles. It has also been pointed out by many experts that short-term dieting may not lead to long term weight loss. In other words, if you practice weight loss today and manage shedding some weight, it is not necessarily a permanent weight loss. One has to keep working out and to keep one's diet in check in order to keep the weight constantly under control or else the digits on your weighing scale might start piling once again bringing you to square one.

The most prominent adverse aftereffect of dieting is the body's going into famine mode wherein it starts stockpiling excessive fat, for it reads low food intake as a signal to start the process of self preservation. As a result, during the dieting period the weight sinks considerably, but the moment you start eating normal, the body starts storing food and the body weight shoots up. Therefore, for effective long term weight loss what is required is careful dieting coupled with regular exercise.

Do not make dieting plan your starvation scheme for that wouldn't work and would invariably do more harm than good.