Obesity and weight trouble has indeed become a major cause for concern in most of the developed world, from the United States, to Japan and Europe. With obesity now often hitting at an early age, and over 12 million overweight people around the world, it is not hard to see the need of a robust weight loss system that can be of benefit to everyone.

Nutritionists are particularly worried about the increase in obesity among young children - the number of obese nine year-olds in Japan has tripled, while one in three American men and women are overweight. The main culprits in this can be considered to be a poor exercise regime and increasing endorsement of junk food products by films stars, sports superstars and other national and global role models.

But new research has also been looking at the possibility of there being other causes for obesity, such as lack of sleep, stress, or even chemicals that may be interfering with the body's metabolism. Other research has pointed towards genetic dispositions as the reason for obesity, making some cultural/racial groups more susceptible to weight gain.

But despite recent developments in the field of nutrition research, it is still accepted wisdom that the easiest and most fail-safe way to lose weight is to adjust your calorie intake with the amount you burn through physical activity. Our diets, which are increasingly characterized by consumption animal products as opposed to plant-based foods, and the shift to high-sugar, high-fat routines, looks to address these basic issues in weight gin. Another aspect new diet plans look at is the kind of food we eat at different times of the day. The assumption here is that the body is not able too effectively burn calories (and thus stores them as fat) because we are eating the wrong foods at the wrong times of the day.

The Shifting Calories diet control plan, for example, stipulates that you eat four meals a day, but at irregular times so that your body's metabolism is not allowed to settle in and is pushed to burn calories more effectively. Moreover, this plan advises shifting the sources of our calories-from more complex to simpler, plant-based fats that are easier to break down and digest. This plan is quite popular because it allows one quite a wide range of foods to choose from-fruits, vegetables and meat and dairy products. This advanced plan has been highly popular with millions of people around the world trying to lose and keep off weight. One important reason for its immense popularity is the flexibility it allows the person who has embarked on the diet plan. The Shifting Calories regime lets one eat foods one is more comfortable with, in keeping with each person's individual body make-up and personalized food habits. Thus, here is a weight loss diet plan that can in fact be applied across cultures without violating their diversity of tastes and taking into account the heterogeneity in body compositions in different parts of the world.