The United States of America is one of the fattest nations on Earth. This is just a fact. The secular diet industry, despite the fact that it has been around for decades and has made billions upon billions of dollars, hasn't helped much. Every few years a new diet fad hits the markets and millions of people sign up for the newest diet scheme. A few are successful in making significant changes in their lives, the vast majority don't. Christian diets seek to change all that.

According to those who design Christian diets, the problem with secular diets is that they don't take the entire person into account. They also don't look at the fact that the most powerful agent of change in a person's life is not the person themselves but the Holy Spirit. The Comforter, the Paraclete, has the power to change lives. Men don't. Only with God's aid can we truly make a difference in our lives and turn our lives around.

This is the real core of Christian diets. On the surface, it might seem that Christian diets follow the same trends that secular diets do. While some are based strongly on Biblical principles (although the Bible does not go terribly far into developing diets outside of the food laws of the Old Testament), many of them keep up with the newest in research into food, exercise and health in general, and create diets that center around the same principles on display in secular diets.

But Christian diets offer something more: Christian diet support. Rather than joining a 12 step program or a weight watchers group, Christian diet support offers not only the assistance of like-minded Christians but God and the Holy Spirit. It is only by trusting in God that we can truly make a difference in our lives. Try as we might to make it on our own, we need the assistance of the Lord in order to affect any kind of change in our lives. This is just a fact of our spiritual existence.

Men are not known for their inner strength. Too often we lack in so many areas. We are, after all, sinful by nature. Our proclivity to overeating is only another outward sign of our straying from the Lord and seeking comfort in the world. Food is after all a product of the world. While it is a necessity for the sustaining of our flesh it is spiritual bread that truly keeps us alive. If we forget the spiritual and seek only the physical it should come as no surprise that so many of us should become overweight in our love affair with eating.

Christian diets seek not only to provide good, solid, Biblical diet advice but to help Christian dieters to put their faith in the Lord and not in the work of men. It is God who makes change in our lives. It is God who gave up his life so that we might live in eternal bliss with him. It is God who sacrificed himself for us, and who gives us the strength to live. If we are to become successful in changing our lives it is through trusting in the guidance of the Lord and not with trusting the guidance of a doctor trying to make a quick buck.

Are Christian diets good diets? Just like any diets, some are and some aren't. While there is much that is good that can be found in Christian diets, the real key to Christian weight loss is in allowing the Lord to guide you through the process of change. Strength, willpower, these are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Allow the Holy Spirit to comfort you and not food. Allow God to guide you in what you eat and not your brain that seeks only to comfort itself. These are the real keys to Christian weight loss.