The best diets for shedding pounds, according to U.S. News. Jumpstart your New Years and better eating with a Diet
Long term healthy eating is the best diet ever yet some women need a kickstart diet plan to get healthy minded. Try one of these plans to get your New Years dieting resolution started. It’s still January!
After New Years is that time of year when Weight loss resolutions have to be either implemented or forgotten. Here is the U.S. News list of dieting plans that they say are the most effective for weight loss. Remember, that weight loss plans are not necessarily the same as the healthiest eating plans. Women who are thin for years usually stay that way by eating healthy and in moderation over all. They don’t stay on a diet all their lives. That being said, if you are overweight it can sometimes help to jumpstart a new you with a diet such as these. Just remember, over the long run the diet itself is not the answer its maintaining a healthy lifestyle with exercise and healthful foods that works long term.
#1 Weight Watchers
Weight watchers topped all the plans for short term and long term weight loss. It may not work for everyone, but the popular point counting diet helps people lose weight. Staying on the wagon after losing the weight is tough and weight watchers will be somewhat effective with long term goals not just short term.
#2 Biggest Loser
Biggest loser is based on the television show. It uses a special food pyramid and is a diet based around eating healthy food and incorporating regular exercise. It should be pretty evident that restricting calories and getting lots of physical activity will result in weight loss. Biggest loser is very effective in the short term and works moderately well in the long term.
#2 Jenny Craig
Jenny Craig takes the approach of prepackaging the meals for you. That forces you to restrict fat, calories, and portions. That adds up to weight loss, no doubt about it. In the long run it is not very practical because who is going to continue to eat expensive pre-packaged food.
#2 Raw Food Diet
A raw food diet will definitely help you lose weight because the raw foods list fosters less overall food consumption. If all you are eating is raw you wind up eating less calories than most other people. It’s a really restrictive diet and therefore not entirely practical for everyone. It also involves more more planning, preparation and shopping. You can’t just get it in the drive through.
#3 Volumetrics Diet
The volumetric diet is interesting because it was developed by a nutrition professor and focuses on getting full. The emphasis on satiety or giving yourself the feeling that you’ve eaten enough is important to many dieters who feel deprived when dieting. So, volumetric eating scored well for both short term and long term weight loss.
#4 Atkins Diet
Atkins diet helps dieters lose weight by embracing consumption of protein and fat like chicken meat and eggs. Yuk. Meat eaters like this diet a lot for weight loss, but the health experts aren’t as keen. Atkins reduces intake of simple starches like potatoes, white breaks and rice. Reducing the starches isn’t such a bad idea however rather than focusing on fruits and vegetables it goes more for the meat. Not even fruit is recommended as it has sugars in it.
#5 Slim Fast Diet
Slim fast works for weight loss because it massively restricts calories. You eat around 1200 calories a day. And the meal plan includes only one 500 calories meal that you prepare. The other two meals involve some sort of meal replacement like a bar or a shake along with a small snack like fruit.
#5 Vegan Diet
Vegetarians eliminate meat, fish and poultry from their diets. Vegans take it a step further and eliminate all animal products, including dairy like milk butter and eggs. Some people can’t give up meat so the diet will work well but only to those that are committed, or that aren’t big meat eaters. Vegans eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. Many of these food may have health benefits in addition to weight loss from fighting cancer to living longer.
#6 Dash Diet
I like the Dash diet because its emphasis is on healthful foods that aren’t packed with calories. Though not designed for weight loss, it will help with weight loss. The diet tells you the basics which is to eat fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy. It suggests you shun calorie laden and fat laden sweets and red meats. DASH stands for dietary approaches to stop hypertension. The diet claims that nutrients like potassium, calcium, protein and fiber that you can get from a healthy diet will help fend off high blood pressure.
#6 Eco-Atkins
Tied at sixth place the eco-atkins diet is a Canadian twist on the basic Atkins diet. In a sense its nothing like the atkins diet, because it recommends to switch the high-protein meat and eggs staple of the diet to high protein plants instead. It also piles on the fruits and vegetables. In my mind it’s a total 180 from the original Atkins so I am surprised they used the atkins name in the moniker, but I like it better than Atkins anyways.
#6 Mayo Clinic Diet
It’s a two part diet with a lose it and live it phase. In the lose it phase you don’t count calories. You just work on developing better eating habits and you snack on unlimited fruits and veggies. After a few weeks you go into the second phase where you base the diet on calories to either lose or maintain weight loss. You fill in the calories you’re allotted with healthy foods.
#7 Mediterranean Diet
People in countries that border the Mediterranean Sea have long been known to be healthier and live longer. Their secret is to live an active lifestyle, and eat a diet low in red meat, sugar and saturated fat. Foods such as produce, nuts and other healthy items including olive oil are the main stay. It’s not going to work for fast weight loss but is said to be a pretty healthy diet.
#7 Ornish Diet
The Ornish diet is mainly good for heart health, and like the Mediterranean Diet is not designed for rapid weight loss. The diet promotes nutrition, exercise, stress management and emotional support as its main goals for helping people eat healthy and lose weight over time.
#7 South Beach Diet
Also tied in seventh place is the South Beach diet. This diet preaches that there are good carbs and fats to eat and bad carbs and fats to avoid. Since the food intake is light it will definitely help to drop pounds quickly but the long term prospect of maintaining such a diet to lose weight us unlikely.
#7 TLC Diet
This is another diet designed to be heart healthy. While it was not designed for weight loss, the TLC diet is thought by many to be a sensible diet. It is a sound approach to eating and there is nothing extreme suggested. For example, you don’t have to shun carbs or meat. So, this is a diet that many people could follow.
So, there you are, several of the most popular diets that will help to promote weight loss. Choosing a diet is personal so I’d say you would have to select what works best for you. Some people like the restricted meals and prepackaged meals, while others prefer to improve eating habits and eat freely just more healthily. It’s all up to the person and what works. Be sure to add in exercise to any weight loss plan as it will help you shed the pounds, build muscles, and stay toned and in shape for longevity.