The traffic light diet is a simple, easy to use, visual approach to establishing a healthy balanced diet, as well as a common sense approach to weight loss. As our diet plan review explains, the traffic light diet utilises the three colours of the classic road signalling system. Red for danger, amber for caution and green for go.

Food is colour coded into three basic groups. Green foods are low in calories and have plenty of nutrients. Amber foods are high or reasonably high in calories but also high in nutrients and vitamins, whilst red foods are high in calories with few nutrients.

In the traffic light diet, followers are advised to eat as much as they want from the green group, moderately from the amber, and sparingly from the red. Green grouped foods obviously feature highly in the diet meal plans and recipes, with a modicum of amber foods. If you wish to lose weight and have a more healthy diet meal plan, then it is advised to cut down or eliminate red group foods entirely from your repertoire of recipes.

Green group foods include fruit and vegetables, low fat milk and yoghurt, white fish and seafood. Amber foods include potatoes, low fat cheese, oily fish, lean meat, poultry, beans, nuts, seeds, rice, pasta and high fibre breads and cereals. Red foods cover just about everything else. Obviously the way in which food is prepared will make a difference to the calorific content but the basic principle of this weight loss programme is a sound one. Indeed, many supermarkets have now started to label their food in line with these colours.