First you must ensure you are getting adequate nutrition.

If you go on a rapid weight loss program consisting of just eating cabbage soup, or a pineapple diet, or a pure protein diet, or any diet that restricts the range of foods you are eating, then you are likely going to have nutritional problems when you've been on it for a week or two.

Recently there have been newspaper reports of people on restrictive diets suffering from Scurvy!! I thought the experience of the sailors middle ages taught us the lesson that a restrictive diet can cause problems like scurvy and even worse issues. There were a lot of them who died from poor nutrition until we learnt the lesson.

If I sound a little dramatic here it is because I am meaning to be dramatic. If we do not get enough nutrition in our rapid weight loss program we will suffer health consequences that are bad in the short term and can be fatal in the long term.

Good nutrition from a rapid weight loss program is the first criteria you need to get right.

Second you need to restrict the fats, sugars and the calories you eat.

Every day you burn calories just keeping your body running: breathing, your heart pumping, keeping body temperature.

There is a measure called your Basal Metabolic Rate that tells you how many calories you will burn if you lay still in a dark room and did nothing all day.

A man with a bit of muscle is likely to be burning 2,000 a day and many ladies who are looking to lose just a little weight are likely to burning 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day, just to stay alive. With a Basal Metabolic rate is around 2,000 calories a day. That means that if I consume 2,000 calories with good nutrition then everything I do in the day will burn additional calories and can reduce body fat, walking, gym, just moving about in normal life.

If you establish a rapid weight loss program that gives you a little less calories a day than your Basal Metabolic Rate requires, without cutting your calories so much that your metabolism drops, then losing weight safely and quickly is achievable.

The point here is that you can eat a decent amount of good food every day and still lose weight. You do not need to starve yourself, or even to go hungry, as long as the food that you do eat has enough nutrition then you can even enjoy losing weight!

For a really rapid weight loss program you can strengthen the need to burn calories from stored body fat by pulling most saturated fats, processed sugars and other poor food choices out of my diet. If you can replace the poor food choices with fruit, raw or lightly cook vegetables and then also add vitamin supplements and protein supplements to get the nutrition your cells then need then you set up with a rapid weight loss program that will work quickly and give results that will stay with you longer term.

If you can pull your calorie intake to 1,000 calories less than what you are burning each day, then your rapid weight loss program that will give strong results.

Third you need to be able to live with the rapid weight loss program you choose.

Always remember that "food is social". It is part of the very fabric of our society.

If you are going to put yourself on a diet that stops you eating a meal with your family, or getting together with friends, or attending social functions, then the odds stacked against you succeeding with your rapid weight loss program.

If you chose something that is simple and sustainable, but that still lets you eat the foods you love, then there is a much higher chance of long term success.

For weight loss most people do need to reduce the calories they consume every day.

The knack is getting everything you need to keep your body healthy, and still enjoy what you eat. To get the nutrition to keep your vital organs health and your blood profiles strong, while cutting out unnecessary fats, sugars, salts and all the "hollow calories" that so many of us eat, takes a little attention.

The easiest way to do this is to replace a couple of meals with high quality nutrition shakes and the supplementary vitamin and mineral tablets that you find in a good quality commercial rapid weight loss program.

If you are looking down the path of meal replacement shakes it is critical that you get high quality products. A quality shake will be based on soy protein and not on milk powder. If you read up on a product and find it is based on milk powder then you would be wise to keep well away from it.

The right program of meal replacement will give you all the nutrition you need and leave you enough calories in your day to be able to have a main meal of pretty much any style of food you like. Just keep the portion size sensible.

If you keep these things in mind when you are choosing a rapid weight loss program your odds of success, quickly and safely are very high.