I have been working out for a year at the gym - building a habit,
building some endurance, and still not unbuilding  much in the way of
size. I was getting pretty discouraged as people all around me were
losing enormous amounts of weight, but doing it in ways that I just
couldn't bring myself to do as they were not founded on healthy
principles. Some key things to look for as warning signs are:

  • Are you limited to under 1000 calories per day?
  • Are you told not to exercise? (even for a short period of time)
  • Are you limited to eating only their food items?
  • Are you told to eliminate whole food groups, or types of foods?
  • Does it feel like they just want to sell you something?

Some things that are important to look for are sound nutritional
advice, and encouragement to exercise. If products are suggested, is
there a good reason for the suggestion, or does it seem like they are
just suggesting because someone told them to. Do they know why
they make the suggestion, and do they accept that your body might be
in need of something else, as not every person's body will respond
the same way to everything. Generally, most people do better having a
good quality daily multiple vitamin, and some basic supplements that
help most human bodies. But, the exercise is extremely important -
just what kind you do will determine how fast you will see results.

That being said: this is working for me. I had a hard time getting to the
gym the past few months and I didn't want to lose what progress I had
made. So I started Slim in 6 at the beginning of December 2009.  It
takes discipline and hard work. But, what I love is there is
accountability built in to the program. You can go directly to the team
beachbody website (click either link to the right) and look around a bit
- you can be a free member and log in your workouts every day for a
chance to win $1000 - yeah , ok, I'll workout! I love the Slim in 6 series
- in a matter of 3 days I lost 1 inch from my hips! Another 3 days later I
lost 3/4 of an inch off of my waist! As for meal plans, I really looked at
a lot of meal plans, and was really working at the Fat Belly Diet put out
by Prevention, but, I like the meal planning feature of the team
beachbody website - so , sometimes I use the plug in meals from the
website, and other times I put in my own from the Flat Belly Diet. The
important thing is to be certain that you are getting complete healthy
nutrition, and getting the calories to support the lifestyle, but not so
many that you can't burn them off. It is a fine line - if your body thinks
that you are starving it will store up everything that you put in (like a
camel). If you eat more than you burn off, you will store them too. That
is where exercise comes in. Muscle burns fat! Not only that, your body
continues to burn fat even after you exercise when you combine
different activities into one workout. It confuses the muscle, therefore
burning more calories - like when you get confused and run around
like a chicken with it's head cut off. The muscle actually does this on a
very small scale. This is the theory behind pretty much every workout
series that you can get from team beachbody. I was so surprised and
amazed at the fast results that I started getting! I will be posting
pictures on the website link at the right as I progress to show the kind
of changes you can expect.  
Weight Loss that Works