Diets do they work?

With my new fitness plan I am on a new meal plan.  This meal plan has me cutting out sugar, you can read how well that's going for me in my previous blog 6 weeks to a new me.  But this is a kind of diet, I mean it's that sugar free diet.  I know it works and I know it's healthy I have seen the results, and I know the goal for my fitness leaders is to help us make a change in diet that will stick with us for the rest of our lives.  But I don't know that I am real big into diets.

There are so many diets out there, the protein diet which cuts out all Carbs, the grapefruit diet, the Jenny Craig system, Weight watchers, Biggest Losers diet plans, I mean how do you tell the truth from the fiction. 

Many of those short term diets are just that, short term.  You will see results but you won't see life long results unless you eat a grapefruit everyday for the rest of your life.  I mean they even did an experiment to prove that you could lose weight by living on junk food.  It's the Twinkie Diet Experiment.  A guy lost 27 pounds by eating 5 twinkies a day a supplementing those twinkies with a protein shake, some multivitamins and some celery or a can of green beans.  And now this same person is showing how by eating a lot of fruits and veggies and healthy food you can gain weight as well. 

And I understand that processed sugar isn't healthy for you, but here is the problem, people are born with a desire for sweets or salts, and I could give up all the salty food in the world but you better back off my sweets.  So how do I still get my sweets, without eating refined sugar??  I understand that soda and chocolate bars and chips are not good for me, they offer no nutrition, but they taste so yummy.  So now I have to get my mind into a place where I realize that it's about healthy choices over fast choices.  I just don't buy that sugar is the devil. 

So with that said, "Which are the long term winners in the dieting world?"  I am sure they are the calorie counting diets, that teach you how to lose weight in a healthy manner. I also know from past experience that portion control is very important to losing weight.  I remember a few years back that I read Dr. Phil's book on weight loss and dieting and it was a real eye opener and it really did help.  I was able to lose like 10 pounds just by altering my portions that I consumed. 

So I am going to power through this struggle diet now incorporating controlled portions and no sugar. So if i turn into a vicious monster in the next few weeks well that's why. 

I just need to figure out if I believe this no sugar nonsense or if it's just that nonsense.