Dieting appears to be going out of fashion. This is of course not for the designers on the runway, but for the people seeking a sustainable and manageable weight loss programme which promotes a healthier lifestyle rather than a size 6 wardrobe and most likely, an eating disorder. Starvation, fad cleansers and binge eating are not so chic, but the results you will get from eating a healthy and balanced diet is. Your skin will brighter, your limbs more toned, and your eyes will sparkle like no colour palette has ever made them before.

Fewer people appear to be jumping on the diet craze train and taking the time out to look at their particular lifestyle choices and individual dietary requirements. Even though they never offer us a realistic view on body image, we still love to look - so let us take a moment to consider the celebrity pool of body types and diet trends.

A girl as beautiful and voluptuous as Lily Allen is never going to fit into the jeans of her waif-like friend and moreover not-so positive role model - Kate Moss. Lily will never be naturally smaller than a size 10, which remains small for the average woman, but has finally found a way to stay healthy, sexy and in shape enough to wear her garders and lingerie on stage at whatever size she may be.

The starlet has tried everything from diet pills, to just taking other pills, to hypnotism - but has recently come out to say that she has only reached her goal weight today through adopting a healthier way of living with moderate diet and exercising. As a consequence, the starlet claims that she has never been happier or felt sexier in her own, English-born skin.

False Diet Promises Bring Heartache

Promises and sweet nothings from Hollywood of '5 kg in 5 days' and 'I lost my muffin-top in a weekend' are like great lovers, they're often quite fabulous for a brief, short period and then before you can say 'forever and always', they leave you high and dry - and commonly in both cases, a few pounds heavier. Sugar free foods and diet books galore can't sustain you through your breakups, birthday dinners, all-nighters at the office or those days when you're just like every other person in the world and believe that you will surely die without 1... or perhaps 3 chocolate croissants.

Finding a Healthy Life Balance

It is about, like everything in life, finding a healthy balance that is sustainable. Smaller proportions and allowing yourself the occasional treat will win over forcing yourself to eat nothing but lettuce leaf all day before your beach rendezvous, until afterwards when you sit down to devour 3 large McChicken Meals in your trusty stretchy track pants. As most fad-dieters will already know, there is usually severe highs and lows in their tumultuous relationship with their body weight. The quick-snap results of the latest scheme, product or pill is so alluring and desirable, but sadly - the fluctuating weight and subsequent stretch marks are not.

The popular prime-time Australian television show The Biggest Loser, recently did a segment on how satisfying and succesful eating forms of Mediterranean food groups can be in part of our mission to live a longer, healthier life - in smaller jeans. The Mediterranean diet is not like a regular fad diet as such where you are strictly prohibited, but rather a lifestyle choice which offers a vast array of yummy and healthier options for your meals. There is no need to feel like you have just committed carbo-cide after you finish a bowl of spaghetti bolonaise, as the Mediterranean diet promotes a high consumption of the carbohydrates such as breads, rice, pasta, couscous, potatoes, bulgur and polenta.

The Mediterranean Diet

Free, healthy Mediterranean style recipes are easily available online. Most recipes have been formulated so they are simply enough to achieve without opening your fast-food menu drawer at home, and sliding food from containers onto your plates when no-one is looking. The choices available will be sure to make you look like a domestic goddess with a hint of exotic flavour in front of any special guests.

Here are some useful links to healthy meal planning and Mediterranean diet recipes so you can create your own Mediterranean diet cookbook:

The Biggest Loser Master Class Recipes are an ideal way to enjoy flavour rich food that is good for you while satisfying those demanding taste buds.

Try this fun blog listing a collection of Mediterranean Recipes to add to your repetoire.

Here's another blog featuring healthy eating lifestyles around Mediterranean cuisine for more tempting ideas.

The Eating Well collection of healthy recipes will inspire!

Dietitians Association of Australia has a great free online tool for finding healthy recipes for any meal of the day to make life easy.

From here you can find food for everyone with great variety and inspiration to develop your own Mediterranean diet plan. Given the Australian lifestyle a Mediterrean diet and cuisine makes perfect sense to adopt as the general standard, allowing influences from other regions and traditions to be included for a tad of variety.

Healthy Diet Lifestyle Plan

By choosing to develop a healthy lifestyle plan you can incorporate a range of delicious and easy recipes that meet your need for ease, flavour, diversity, health and enjoyment while looking after your weight.

Nasty, ineffective fad diets can easily be a thing of the past when a healthy year round lifestyle diet is implemented. Testing out new recipes, creating your own recipe book for home and social BBQ's is as easy as finding healthy recipes online and giving them a go.