We had the pleasure of talking with Registered Dietitian Tanya Zuckerbrot who is the creator of the popular F-Factor Diet and author of The F-Factor Diet. Tanya spoke with us about the biggest challenge that her clients have faced in trying to lose weight as well as the process of developing this diet. Check out our interview below.

What are the biggest challenges that your clients face with the diets that they do?

Tanya: I think that the largest challenge for most difficult diets is the association of feeling the deprivation, because the focus is only on what you have to put out. Whether it is to cut out fat or sugar or red meat or alcohol and that's why most diets aren't sustainable. So the difference with other diets like Akins or you know... South Beach, is that they either focus on what you're cutting out like a food group, or it's something like Weight Watchers where you can have all your favorite food but then the portions are really small.

So say you could have spaghetti and meatballs and then you open up your Weight Watcher dinner or your Jenny Craig dinner and you have one cup of pasta and two little meatballs, right? So that leaves people dissatisfied. On the F-Factor Diet, the focus is what food you're adding in, in order to fill up to lose weight. So right away the feelings of deprivation aren't as present. Nothing we've been putting out has you thinking about what sort of fiber you have to add into your diet and fiber adds volume to food so you're also getting large portion despite the fact that it's low caloric intake.

Tell me about some of the diets your clients have done before.

Tanya: My clients have done everything from Weight Watchers to Akins to the Cookie Diet. A great endorsement a client gave me was, "You changed my life without changing my lifestyle." They don't have to forgo business dinner, business lunches, social occasion because they can go to ANY restaurant and they can drink alcohol from day 1. So, you know, when you're on Jenny Craig or your friends are out celebrating a birthday and you're sitting home with your frozen meal. They have the freedom to dine out to any restaurant and they're able to easily navigate any menu with confidence. So that's the first change.

I know you have some items that are available in Kroger can you talk a little bit about that?

Tanya: I've been partnered with Hain Celestial Group who wanted a lot of F-Factor food and these foods are the highest fiber food on the marketplace. We've launched 3 cereals: F-Factor Cinnamon O that have 15 grams of fiber and F-Factor Skinny and F-Factor Skinny and Fruit which have 18 grams of fiber in a half cup setting which is 72% of your fiber needs for the day. So if you have half a cup of yogurt or half a cup of cereal, you know, between lunch and snack you be able to get in the rest of the fibers you need and the recommendation for fiber for women are 25-35 grams per day and from then on it's 38 grams per day.

Tell me a little bit about your process in coming up with these products. What was your involvement in that and did you actually pick the food or did you test how they tasted or what was the process?

Tanya: I was heavily involved in both the research and the development of the product we were initially going to launch with and well as the taste. Because I work with clients day in and day out for over a decade, I know what their needs are. People are looking for quick, tasty, affordable, easy to grab on the go kind of food. So I wanted a cereal for breakfast, because for years I had a lot of fiber 1 in All-Bran and because fiber 1 wasn't all natural; that was the issue for some clients. All-Bran was great, but I knew we could get more fiber into a cereal. So we said cereal and as I said, there's no food on the market that contain more fiber than cereal. It starts your day with an 18 grams of fiber from a half cup of one food and it's really mind boggling. And I wanted to create a breakfast bar or a bar on the go because someone may be jet setters or they're in the airport or they're running in-between meetings and they want something that's portable, filling, and healthy. Something they can always have in their briefcase or in their purse. That's why the next food item was bars, but in the future we're launching crackers, and the next stage are soups and frozen meals.

Now is this a lifestyle change or something that you recommend people do for a period of time?

Tanya: No, if anything you do temporarily, it's going to lead to temporary results. So I explained to the client that you know this is a way of life. That's why on the food launch, the word "diet" was actually taken off the packaging. We just wanted it to be "F-Factor." We all could benefit from an high fiber diet, not just for weight managing properties but also from a health perspective. Fiber doesn't just help you to maintain an ideal body with without hunger or losing weight, but fiber lowers cholesterol, it lowers diabetes because it controls your sugar. It lowers risk for colon cancer and breast cancer, it reduces hypertension, so it's not just about looking better but it's also about living longer. So I certainly recommend to clients that this becomes a way of life. And the client supports it, they can do it! I mean, it really is sustainable.

I know you mention you have some additional product coming out in the future. Is that your focus right now or do you have anything else that's on your plate?

Tanya: I'm writing a new book and that will be coming out in January, 2012. Working on expanding the product line and we gonna be launching, probably in the fall, a community membership on the website. When you go to ffactordiet.com we'll be giving free recipes, and suggestions, and a real support for people following the F-Factor diet. People on the program can chat together, support one another. F-Factor is different than many of the diets that are out there that have those communities so we're ready for that.

Interview By: Emma Loggins