I was looking for more than a diet. After years of watching my friends and family jump from fad diet to fad diet, only to lose the weight, then gain it back again, I knew I needed to find a way to both lose the excess pounds I’d been packing on, and sustain any weight loss success I may experience.

But, how? The answer seemed simple enough: I needed a complete lifestyle change. What I’d been eating wasn’t working in my favor. I was tired all of the time, I was cranky and I was fat and getting fatter. There wasn’t a quick fix and I knew it. It was time for a big change. But where to start?

That’s when I did what any modern person does, I hit the internet. With the click of a few buttons I was inundated with hundreds of diet plans that promised quick weight loss and amazing results. To be honest, most seemed a little too good to be true. Then I scanned by something I hadn’t heard about before: The Maker’s Diet. (Click on the link to see what it's all about.) Intrigued to find out more I clicked on their website.

At first glance I thought maybe it was a bit kooky. After all, can God really be the next Dieting Guru of the masses? But hey, I thought, if He made us, then maybe he does know what is best for us to eat – and not eat. So I read on.

Before long I realized that The Maker’s Diet might actually be on to something. Strong on eating right and exercise, as well as prayer, meditation and rest, it seemed to be just the kind of whole body and lifestyle change I was after. Click here to see exactly why this diet is causing such a buzz.

The Diet itself is made up of three separate 14-day phases culminating in a basic 40-day plan. To be honest, Phase One is hard! At least for a junk food junkie like me. During this ultra-restrictive phase of the diet, just about every food modern-day America is used to consuming is prohibited: all sugar, processed foods, caffeine, artificial foods, preservatives, most starches, and dairy. Pork products are also off limits throughout the entire diet.

Although it may seem like they’re trying to torture you with all of the restrictions, the diet’s designer, Jordan Rubin, believes that by eliminating all of the “bad stuff” that food manufacturer’s have added to foods in the last 100 years or so, and going back to a more natural and “biblical” way of eating, we can all enjoy a healthier and more fulfilling existence.

Phase One of The Maker’s Diet is designed to cleanse your body of toxins, and correct any imbalances in blood glucose levels, alleviate insulin sensitivity and balance the omega-2/omega 6 ratio that is vital for decreasing inflammation and enhancing the immune system.

At first I was skeptical that all the stuff I’d been eating was really having much of an impact on my health (other than making me fatter), until I started the diet and realized that the side effects I was experiencing were really withdrawal symptoms. If I’m having withdrawal symptoms from the stuff I’m eating, then I must not have been eating good stuff, right? I thought. Boy, was I ever right! (Click here to learn why most of today's foods are so harmful for us.)

The first few days on the diet sent me into a tizzy. I had a horrible migraine headache, felt nauseous and achy like I had the flu, was listless and cranky and basically felt awful. To think that this was all being caused because my body wasn’t getting the sugars and preservatives that it was used to actually scared me a bit.

What had I been doing to my body and health all these years? Food is supposed to sustain your body and help keep it strong, not create an inner dependency on certain chemicals found in it. I felt horrible, but I knew I was onto something.

Going back to a more natural way of eating – all fresh organic fruits, veggies and meats void of dangerous pesticides, hormones, preservatives and the like – was helping to rebalance my body into a more normal state.

By the end of the second week on the program, I was feeling better than I’d felt in years. Most of the detoxification symptoms subsided, and I was not only full of energy, but I just felt better. No more highs and lows throughout the day as my body craved a sugar fix. I was satisfied to eat three meals and two snacks a day without feeling like I had to sneak in a trip or two to the vending machine during a normal workday.

Reaching Phase Two was a real triumph for me. I’d survived my two weeks of deprivation and I’d lost 13 pounds! But I was feeling so good that I wasn’t much interested in reintroducing many of the foods that weren’t allowed during Phase One on the program. While I did add dairy back into my diet, I opted to only use milk and other products from a natural dairy near my home that did not give its cows hormones or feed them pesticide ridden feeds and grasses.

The breads I now eat are all whole grain, as is the pasta, to give me the most natural state possible. And instead of buying my produce at the grocery store, I now head to the local farmer’s market where I can be sure that the fruits and vegetables I eat are as close to their natural state as possible.

Even after reaching Stage Three of the program, which allows the reintroduction of many foods I’d previously enjoyed in a much more balanced way, I have personally decided to remain eating according to the more restrictive parts of the plan in order to maintain the health benefits I have enjoyed since joining The Maker’s Diet.

While I’m thrilled to have lost a total of 22 pounds on the plan thus far, for me it’s been more about creating a new healthier lifestyle and eating plan, and less about the weight. Sure, it’s great to be thinner, but it feels even better to experience more energy and less illness simply by eating the foods my body was created to consume, and leaving the rest on the grocer’s shelves.

You really should click here to check it out. You'll be glad you did.