"I tried a low-carb diet last year and found I could do fine without pasta, bagels, bread, and rice," says Anne McBride, a 27-year-old account executive in New York City. "But I couldn't resist homemade pastries. I was taking a cooking class at the time, and that's when I broke down. I just couldn't say no to muffins, honey cakes, and lemon cakes."

McBride had entered a diet danger zone--one of those times when a dieter is most likely to slip up and, maybe, give up. Ever been there? We're betting you have. After all, experts say most dieters fall off the wagon within the first couple of weeks. To help you navigate the 14 top danger zones for the five most common diet plans--low-carb, low-calorie, low-fat, meal replacements, and prepared meals--we asked weight loss experts and in-the-trenches dieters for their escape strategies. Here's their best advice to beat the odds.

Low-Carb Diets
Danger Zone: Starter's Slump
Although it has captured the hearts, minds, and stomachs of at least 10 million Americans, this diet du jour has an ugly side--carb withdrawal. Chief among the complaints of low-carb dieters are headaches, nausea, dizziness, and superlow energy. "By the end of the first day, I was shaking so badly I couldn't even hold a glass," says Sheila Smith, 36, a mother of three in Honolulu who has tried Atkins and other low-carb diets. "By the end of the second day, I was perspiring with a migraine, and by the third day, I quit."

Escape Strategy: Refuel Often
When you're slogging through those early days, experts say it's imperative that you eat every 2 to 3 hours, even if you're not hungry. "This will prevent your blood sugar from dropping and reduce the side effects of a low-carb plan," says Molly Kimball, RD, sports and lifestyle nutritionist at Ochsner's Elmwood Fitness Center in New Orleans. If you're on a low-carb diet and symptoms persist beyond 7 or 8 days, go ahead and move on to the second phase of the diet, which generally allows some fruits and whole grains, says Kimball.

Danger Zone: Breakfast Blues
Food burnout is a big problem for low-carbers, especially at breakfast. "I thought I'd vomit if I saw another egg," says Steve Raupe, 40, of Oklahoma City. Dieters like Raupe find breakfast tough because there seem to be so few attractive low-carb options. "When people are confronted with the same type of food day after day, they get bored and often give up," says Kimball.

Escape Strategy: Get Creative
Spice up omelets with asparagus and goat cheese, scramble tofu with some veggies, or spread almond butter on a low-carb tortilla. Or choose from lunch, dinner, or snack options, such as chicken salad, quiche, grilled steak or pork chops, and yogurt cucumber dip. (It's all food, right?)

Danger Zone: Fatty-Food Overload
Even if you lose a dramatic amount of weight in the early stages of the diet, a recent study of 132 obese adults done at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center showed that after about 6 months of low-carbing it, weight loss tended to plateau. The culprits, most nutritionists say, are high-calorie foods such as bacon, salami, cheese, nuts, and peanut butter. "Many of my clients think that cutting carbs gives them a blank check to eat everything else," says Stephen P. Gullo, PhD, author of Thin Tastes Better.

Escape Strategy: Choose Juicy Foods
Even though the diets themselves suggest that you don't have to worry about portion size, the reality is, calories count. Avoid foods that have low water content, such as butter, bacon, crackers, and nutrition bars, which tend to be very high in calories, suggests Jay Kenny, PhD, RD, director of nutritional research at Florida Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa in Aventura. Instead, choose lower-calorie, higher-water-content foods: shrimp (25 calories per ounce to bacon's 200), a skinless chicken breast (45 calories per ounce), or vegetables (fewer than 6 calories per ounce).

Low-Calorie Diets
Danger Zone: Overcutting Calories
Limiting your calorie intake is the surest, most basic weight loss method around--unless you go too far. "Most people are looking for instant results, so they cut out way too many calories," says Kimball. "I had one client who ran and lifted weights for 2 hours a day on nothing but a Luna Bar for breakfast and some high-fiber cereal for lunch." Blinded by hunger in the late afternoon, she would fill up on ice cream and trail mix and ultimately went up two dress sizes within a year.

Escape Strategy: Play by the Rules
The unfortunate reality is that crash diets don't lead to long-term solutions. "Your body just isn't going to play along if you try to get by on only 600 calories a day," says Kimball. In fact, it's going to revolt and make weight loss more difficult by burning fewer calories. The old rule about losing no more than 1 to 2 pounds a week still holds; that generally means eating about 500 fewer calories a day but not cutting calories any lower than 1,200 a day.

Danger Zone: Skipping Meals
"Not eating at regular intervals leaves you just as vulnerable to hunger pains as eating too few calories," says Kimball. "And feeling hungry is the surest way to lose your motivation." Most people who skip meals end up eating more calories, not fewer. In an attempt to slim down her 280-pound figure, Yolanda Ellison, 27, a computer programmer in Toledo, OH, would go all day without eating. "But by the time dinner rolled around, I'd devour every morsel of fried food I could get my hands on," says Ellison. As it turned out, she was eating more calories in that one meal than she would have eaten in three meals a day--and she didn't shed an ounce.

Escape Strategy: Eat Superfilling Minimeals
"The first thing I tell my clients is that eating less doesn't mean not eating," says Kimball, who encourages women who are cutting calories to have five or six small meals a day. Research has shown that snackers tend to have a lower risk of obesity than nonsnackers. You should choose foods that make you feel full while providing the least number of calories, says Barbara Rolls, PhD, author of The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan. "People tend to eat the same weight of food every day." So fill up on foods that weigh a lot but have fewer calories, such as gazpacho, baked potatoes (without the toppings), fruits, and vegetables.

Danger Zone: The Dreaded Plateau
When the needle on the scale won't budge, the most common response is to cut more calories. That's a smart move because the less you weigh, the fewer calories your body requires. For instance, a 300-pound woman most likely needs to consume about 3,000 calories a day to maintain her weight.

So even if she eats 2,500 calories a day, she'll lose weight. After she loses more than 50 pounds, though, she'll have to further lower her calorie intake. But you can only go so low before your body hits starvation mode and refuses to shed more pounds.

Escape Strategy: Burn Off the Calories
Exercise is a key factor in breaking through the plateau (and in keeping the pounds off, for that matter). "In the beginning, I was so large that all I had to do was reduce my food intake slightly and the weight poured off me," says Janine DeVito, 33, who works for Saturday Night Live in New York City and used to weigh 300 pounds. But when the weight loss came to a screeching halt, "I felt like I couldn't limit my calories any more than I already was," says DeVito. That's when she dusted off an old treadmill in the basement, started walking every day, and finally got to her goal weight of 150 pounds.

"Your body just isn't going to play along if you try to get by on only 600 calories a day"

Low-Fat Diets
Danger Zone: Constant Hunger
It's a fact: The less fat you eat, the less satisfied you'll be. Why? A study at the University of California, Davis, found that dietary fat stimulates the release of cholecystokinin, a hormone that is believed to enhance satiety--that sense of having eaten enough. And fat satisfies your tastebuds by increasing the palatability of food.

Escape Strategy: Bump Up Your Fiber
First, allow some healthy fat, such as olive oil, in your diet, Rolls says. Then incorporate lots of high-fiber foods--legumes, brown rice, and fruits. Eating a low-fat, high-fiber diet leads to three times greater weight loss than a low-fat diet alone, according to a recent review of published studies.

Danger Zone: Falling for "Low-Fat" Labels
"Reducing your fat intake may stimulate your cravings for sweets," says Gullo. And many dieters reach for reduced-fat cakes, cookies, and chocolate. "The problem," says Wahida Karmally, DrPh, RD, director of nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center, "is that a reduced-fat Oreo and a regular Oreo have about the same calories."

Escape Strategy: Think Natural
"Choose foods that are naturally low in fat, not those that have been engineered to be low-fat," says Karmally, who recommends yummy and satisfying options such as strawberry and banana smoothies and fruits such as watermelon and mangoes.

Meal Replacements
Danger Zone: Chewing Withdrawal
Research has shown that people need to chew--not just drink--in order to feel full and satisfied, but liquid meal replacements offer few opportunities. "We're not created to only drink liquids," says Karmally.

Escape Strategy: Join the Raw Food Brigade
Raw food is trendy, and much of it--primarily vegetables and fruits--is allowed on meal-replacement plans. "Chomping down on raw vegetables--for example, carrots, celery, and green peppers--really gives you a satisfying crunch," says Karmally.

Danger Zone: Family Mealtime
After 2 or 3 weeks, watching everyone scarf down bowls of Cheerios, slices of pizza, and plates of pasta while you drink a shake can be unbearable. "It's difficult to make changes if those around you are doing what you can't," says Anne Fletcher, RD, author of Thin For Life.

Escape Strategy: Make Social Meals Real-Food Meals
"You're allowed one real-food meal a day on Slim Fast, so I make that the one where I'm with people," says Cat Moody, 43, a Long Island accountant. Maybe you'll have dinner with your family one day, lunch with friends another day, and brunch with your in-laws on the weekend. At other times, you may want to leave the room to avoid watching everyone eat while you sip. Make up for missed family time afterward by taking a walk or playing a game together.

Danger Zone: Switching Back to Real Food
Meal-replacement plans are perhaps the simplest diet option because you don't have to think about what or how much to eat. Unfortunately, that can also be their downfall. Because many dieters are tempted to rely on meal-replacement shakes for every single meal, they don't learn how to make good food choices and how to size up portions. "People lose weight very quickly on these plans," says Madelyn H. Fernstrom, PhD, director of the University of Pittsburgh Weight Management Center. "But they tend to regain the weight as soon as they switch back to normal food."

Escape Strategy: Don't Treat Solid Food as the Enemy
"You can't permanently escape real food," says Fernstrom. Notes Moody, "At first I had two shakes and one regular meal a day, as Slim Fast suggested." Slowly, she moved to two meals and one shake a day, as the diet instructed for weight maintenance. "Eating correctly turned out to be simpler than I thought. I learned that a piece of fruit is about 100 calories. Then I took time to learn the calorie amounts for a few standard meals, and I was set. Now I cook my regular meals on Sunday and portion out my snacks so that I'll have everything ready to go for the entire week and not be tempted to eat more than my body needs."

Prepared Meals
Danger Zone: An Overloaded Freezer
"The biggest help Jenny Craig and other plans provide is portion control," says Fernstrom. Unfortunately, to save money, many dieters on this type of plan often stock up on too many of the prepackaged, prepared meals at one time, making their refrigerator or freezer ripe for binges.

Escape Strategy: Don't Stock Up
"Limit the amount of food you order in advance," suggests Fernstrom. It's a bit more expensive in the short run, but if your diet is successful, it's money well spent. And if sweets are a problem, forgo the plan's desserts entirely, at least for the time being. Instead, share an occasional treat with a friend when you're out together. That way you're keeping tempting goodies out of the house, making it less likely that you'll act on cravings.

Danger Zone: Eating Out
"Restaurants love to pile french fries and other starches onto your plate because it's a cheap way to fill you up," says Kimball. "That's one reason why portion control tends to go out the window when you eat out."

Escape Strategy: Micromanage Your Outings
Get in the habit of ordering lean meat with no starch and ask for double the veggies, says Kimball. You could also meet friends or colleagues for breakfast or lunch instead of dinner, which tends to be more calorie dense. Kandace Simmons, 36, of New York City, keeps both her social life and her diet on track by eating on the plan 90 percent of the time and off it 10 percent. "When I go out on Saturdays, I eat what I want," she says. "The rest of the week I stick to prepared meals."

Danger Zone: Financial Burnout
The Zone diet delivery programs cost around $40 a day; Jenny Craig is about $12 a day. That expense can be discouraging. "I was spending about $250 for 2 weeks of food for the Jenny Direct program," says Rene Stofflett, 42, of Mundelein, IL. "It was getting to be too much."

Escape Strategy: Get Thrifty
Buy your own salad dressing, vitamins, and cereal (measure it yourself). Stofflett saved $75 a month--enough to keep her on the plan--by picking up her food from the Jenny Craig Center instead of having it shipped to her