Top 10 Healthy Diets for Weight Loss

Since all calories are not created equal, dieticians across the spectrum suggest different diet plans to go with an individual’s routine and body type.
While the diet plans suggested may be different, most dieticians give the following suggestions that appear to be constant.

• Consume as much of fruits and vegetables as possible
• Eat high quality, nutritious whole foods and avoid processed food
• Prefer home cooked food
• Avoid added sugars, trans-fat, and refined carbohydrates

New annual rankings by TIME, U.S. News enlisted the help of a panel of food and health experts to rank 40 diets on a variety of measures such as, the ease of following the diet, the diet’s ability to help a person lose weight in the short and long-term, safety and. The report revealed the best diets for 2018 is a tie, between Mediterranean Diet and DASH Diet in the first place.

Following are the 10 Healthy Diets for Weight Loss;

1. Dash Diet

Dietary approaches to stop hypertension or Dash diet is a dietary pattern promoted by the US-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to prevent and control hypertension. This plan does not specify special foods, instead, ask people to eat lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. To control bad cholesterol, people are asked to avoid saturated fats, fatty meats, tropical oils like Palm or Coconut oil, and sugary beverages and sweets. This is a flexible plan to help build a healthy heart.

2. Mediterranean Diet

As the name suggests, this diet plan is borrowed from the eating habit of the people living in Mediterranean countries. They are known for better health and longevity. Diet includes foods high in fruits and vegetables, especially citrus, nuts, whole grains, legumes and olive oil. It also features lean sources of protein- fish and poultry instead of red meat. Mediterranean Diet plan recommends red wine to be regularly consumed in moderate amounts.

3. Flexitarian Diet

A combination of two words- flexible and vegetarian, this diet emphasizes upon people to prefer eating vegetarian meals most of the time. Eating meat is not outrightly rejected but is recommended to be consumed with restraint. Meat consumption is to be exchanged for alternative protein sources. The plan aims to be environmental friendly by the reducing carbon footprint while improving your health as well.

4. Weight Watchers’ Diet

This is a diet plan with a difference. While allowing you to eat junk/fatty items like potato chips, cake, ice cream, and pizza, people are asked to watch out the number of calories that they burn out by the end of the day to even out overeating. Popularized by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, this plan works on a points system, where each food is given a number of points, and people are told to aim for a total number of points each day.

5. Mind Diet

As the name implies, this diet consists of brain-healthy foods. Diet is designed to promote a healthy mind with the neuro-degenerative delay or lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. A blend of two diets with several health benefits, Dash and Mediterranean, it has really become very popular. List of recommended edibles includes green leafy vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil and wine. Dieticians ask to avoid red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheese, sweets and fried or fast food.

6. Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC)

TLC diet is endorsed by the American Heart Association for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Since bad cholesterol, increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, doctors recommend sharp cut in consumption of fatty meat, whole-milk dairy and fried foods, along with increased intake of fiber-rich diet.

7. Volumetric Diet

This diet plan focuses on the energy density of foods. For long term weight loss program, watching out the calorific content of the food is important for achieving the goal. Volumetric diet, as the name implies, pitches for low calorie. But high volume eating plan which includes lot of water and fiber.

Even calorie-packed foods are allowed as long as you stick within the recommended calorie intake.

8. Nutritarian Diet

This diet plan created by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., author of The End of Dieting—is nutrient-dense, plant-rich, and includes anti-cancer superfoods to help you not just lose weight but live a long, disease-free life. As per the doctor, whole plant food rich in high nutrients is recommended. It is to unleash the body’s tremendous ability to heal, achieve optimal weight and slow the aging process. Relatively a new diet plan, this plan aims to maximize the amount of healthy vitamins, minerals, and trace nutrients in your food, balancing your hormones, and avoiding toxins.

9. Keto Diet

Was especially designed for controlling epilepsy in children. Instead of burning carbs, this diet plan forces the body to burn fats. This low carb diet encourages body to turn fats into ketones for energy. The idea is to keep intake of the carbohydrates to the minimum. In fact, Keto diets are composed up to 70 percent of your daily calories from fat and the rest from protein. Advocates of this diet plan argue that it helps them drop weight fast with little or no hunger in addition to perks like more energy and mental clarity.

10. CICO Diet

CICO stands for “calories in, calories out”. This diet plan is based on a sensible mathematical principle. This way you will surely lose weight, if you are able to burn more calories than you eat.

It is essentially a method to keep track of your daily intake of calories. The idea is eating fewer calories lesser than you burn out in a day. Simple monitoring of one’s daily intake of calories is the only criterion of health watch.

Apart from these, following a strict diet plan, by engaging in about two and a half hours of vigorous activity per week. We can not only be physically active but maintain a healthy lifestyle. Healthy lifestyle is also about better stress management and therapy to address emotional issues that can lead to unhealthy eating patterns.

Content Resource:- The blog is presented by Sharda Hospital and intends to create awareness about mindful eating. Sharda Hospital is one of the largest super speciality hospitals in Delhi National Capital Region (NCR).