Choosing a new diet plan can be a daunting task, given the multitude of options available. The key lies in identifying a plan that aligns with your individual goals, lifestyle, and health needs. Diets aren't just for weight loss. While changing your diet can be one of the best ways to lose weight, it can also be a gateway to improving your habits, focusing on your health, and leading a more active lifestyle. It’s also wise to consider your dieting history, including what has worked for you and what hasn’t-and why. There may be valuable lessons in your previous experiences.
Defining Your Goals and Considering Your History
Before embarking on any diet, it's crucial to define your objectives. Are you primarily aiming for weight loss, or are you more focused on reducing body fat? Perhaps you're seeking to improve a specific aspect of your health or lifestyle. A study in Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine highlighted the importance of aligning dietary goals with broader life goals to enhance adherence and long-term success. If you were tired and miserable on a low-carb approach in the past, you should probably look at a different one.
Key Components of a Healthy Diet
Regardless of the specific diet plan you choose, certain fundamental elements contribute to overall health and well-being:
- A Healthy Number of Daily Calories: Balancing energy intake with expenditure is essential for weight management.
- A Variety of Foods from Different Food Groups: A diverse diet ensures you obtain a wide range of nutrients. Think fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, lean protein and healthy fats.
- Appropriate Macronutrient Proportions: Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats should be consumed in balanced amounts to provide energy and support bodily functions.
- Sufficient Micronutrients: Vitamins and minerals are vital for optimal bodily function. It shouldn’t rely on supplements to provide these nutrients.
- An Afternoon Snack: Snacks “keep people fulfilled”.
Featured Diet Plans
The Mayo Clinic Diet
The Mayo Clinic Diet is the official weight-loss program developed by Mayo Clinic experts. The program focuses on eating delicious healthy foods and increasing physical activity. The Mayo Clinic Diet is generally safe for most adults. It emphasizes that the best way to keep weight off for good is to change your lifestyle and adopt new habits that you enjoy and can stick with.
How it Works:
The Mayo Clinic Diet program has been updated and is designed to help you reshape your lifestyle by adopting healthy new habits and breaking unhealthy old ones. It focuses on changing your daily routine by adding and breaking habits that can affect your weight. Simple habits, such as eating more fruits and vegetables, not eating while you watch TV, and moving your body for 30 minutes a day, can help you lose weight.
Read also: Foods and Fibroids
The diet is structured into two phases:
- Lose It! This two-week phase is designed to jump-start your weight loss, so you may lose up to 6 to 10 pounds (2.7 to 4.5 kilograms) in a safe and healthy way. In this phase, you focus on lifestyle habits that are associated with weight. You learn how to add five healthy habits, break five unhealthy habits and adopt another five bonus healthy habits.
- Live It! This phase is a lifelong approach to health. In this phase, you learn more about food choices, portion sizes, menu planning, physical activity, exercise and sticking to healthy habits. You may continue to see a steady weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilograms) a week until you reach your goal weight.
The Mayo Clinic Diet makes healthy eating easy by teaching you how to estimate portion sizes and plan meals. The program doesn't require you to be precise about counting calories. Mayo Clinic experts designed the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid to help you eat foods that are filling but low in calories. Each of the food groups in the pyramid emphasizes health-promoting choices. The program recommends getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day and even more exercise for further health benefits and weight loss. It provides an exercise plan with easy-to-follow walking and resistance exercises that will help maximize fat loss and boost mental well-being. If you've been inactive or you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor or health care provider before starting a new physical activity program.
Flexibility:
The Mayo Clinic Diet provides a choice of five different eating styles at several calorie levels. What about dessert? You can have sweets but no more than 75 calories a day. For practicality, consider thinking of your sweets calories over the course of a week. After that, you transition into the second phase, where you continue to lose 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilograms) a week until you reach your goal weight. Most people can lose weight on almost any diet plan that restricts calories - at least in the short term.
Considerations:
For most people, eating lots of fruits and vegetables is a good thing - these foods provide your body with important nutrients and fiber. Also, the natural sugar in fruit does affect your carbohydrate intake - especially if you eat a lot of fruit. This may temporarily raise your blood sugar or certain blood fats. If you have diabetes or any other health conditions or concerns, work with your doctor to adjust the Mayo Clinic Diet for your situation. For example, people with diabetes should aim for more vegetables than fruits, if possible.
The Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet has long been considered the gold standard for nutrition, disease prevention, wellness, and longevity. This is based on its nutrition benefits and sustainability.
Read also: Diet Plan for Picky Eaters
How it Works:
The Mediterranean diet is based on foods that people in countries like Italy and Greece have traditionally eaten. It is rich in:
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Whole grains
- Fish
- Nuts
- Lentils
- Olive oil
Foods such as poultry, eggs, and dairy products are to be eaten in moderation, and red meats are limited. Additionally, the Mediterranean diet limits:
- Refined grains
- Trans fats
- Processed meats
- Added sugar
- Other highly processed foods
Health Benefits:
This diet’s emphasis on minimally processed foods and plants has been associated with a reduced risk of multiple chronic diseases and increased life expectancy. Studies also show that the Mediterranean diet has a preventive effect against certain cancers. Though the diet was designed to lower heart disease risk, numerous studies indicate that its plant-based, high unsaturated fat dietary pattern can also aid in weight loss. A systematic review analyzing five different studies found that, compared with a low fat diet, the Mediterranean diet resulted in greater weight loss after 1 year. Compared with a low carb diet, it produced similar weight loss results. One study in more than 500 adults over 12 months found that higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with double the likelihood of weight loss maintenance. Additionally, the Mediterranean diet encourages eating plenty of antioxidant-rich foods, which may help combat inflammation and oxidative stress by neutralizing free radicals. Recent studies have also found that the Mediterranean diet is associated with decreased risk of mental disorders, including cognitive decline and depression. Eating less meat is also associated with a more sustainable diet for the planet.
Downsides:
Since the Mediterranean diet does not put a big emphasis on dairy products, it’s important to make sure you still get enough calcium and vitamin D in your diet.
The DASH Diet
Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, is an eating plan designed to help treat or prevent high blood pressure, which is clinically known as hypertension.
Read also: Vegan Diet for Diabetes Management
How it Works:
It emphasizes eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats. It is low in salt, red meat, added sugars, and fat. While the DASH diet is not a weight loss diet, many people report losing weight on it. The DASH diet recommends specific servings of different food groups. The number of servings you are encouraged to eat depends on your daily calorie intake. For example, each day an average person on the DASH diet would eat about:
- five servings of vegetables
- five servings of fruit
- seven servings of healthy carbs like whole grains
- two servings of low fat dairy products
- two servings or fewer of lean meats
In addition, it’s recommended to consume nuts and seeds two to three times per week.
Health Benefits:
The DASH diet has been shown to reduce blood pressure levels and several heart disease risk factors. Also, it may help lower your risk of breast and colorectal cancers. Studies show that the DASH diet can also help you lose weight. For example, an analysis of 13 studies found that people on the DASH diet lost more weight over 8-24 weeks than people on a control diet. Another study in adults with obesity over 12 weeks found that the DASH diet helped decrease total body weight, body fat percentage, and absolute fat mass in study participants while preserving muscle strength. In addition to weight loss, the DASH diet may help combat depression symptoms. A comparative study over 8 years found that even moderate adherence to the DASH diet was related to lower depression risk.
Downsides:
While the DASH diet may aid with weight loss and lower blood pressure in individuals with hypertension, there is mixed evidence on salt intake and blood pressure. Eating too little salt has been linked to increased insulin resistance, and a low sodium diet isn’t the right choice for everyone. A low sodium diet like the DASH diet is more appropriate for individuals with hypertension or other health conditions that benefit from or require sodium restriction. More research is needed in this area to understand how a low sodium diet can affect insulin resistance in individuals without hypertension.
Plant-Based Diets: Vegetarian, Vegan, and Flexitarian
Vegetarianism and veganism are the most popular versions of plant-based diets, which restrict animal products for health, ethical, and environmental reasons. However, more flexible plant-based diets also exist, such as the flexitarian diet. This is a plant-based diet that allows eating animal products in moderation.
How it Works:
Typical vegetarian diets restrict meat of all kinds but allow dairy products. Typical vegan diets restrict all animal products, including dairy, butter, and sometimes other byproducts like honey. The flexitarian eating plan does not have clear-cut rules or recommendations about calories and macronutrients, so it’s considered more of a lifestyle than a diet. Its principles include:
- consuming protein from plants instead of animals
- eating mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains
- eating the least processed, most natural forms of foods
- limiting sugar and sweets
Additionally, it allows the flexibility to consume meat and animal products from time to time.
Health Benefits:
Numerous studies have shown that plant-based diets can reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases, including improved markers of metabolic health, decreased blood pressure, and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. They can also help you lose weight. Flexitarian diets have also been shown to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and improve metabolic health and blood pressure, plus may have their own weight loss benefits.
Other benefits:
For those who are looking to lead a sustainable lifestyle, decreasing your meat consumption can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and soil degradation.
Downsides:
Plant-based eating patterns like vegetarianism and veganism can sometimes be difficult to maintain and may feel restricting, especially if you’re switching from a more meat-based eating style. And while the flexibility of the flexitarian diet makes it easy to follow, being too flexible with it may counteract its benefits.
The MIND Diet
The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet combines aspects of the Mediterranean and DASH diets to create an eating pattern that focuses on brain health.
How it Works:
Like the flexitarian diet, the MIND diet does not have a strict meal plan, but instead encourages eating 10 specific foods with brain health benefits. Per week, MIND includes eating:
- six or more servings of green, leafy vegetables
- one serving of non-starchy vegetables
- five or more servings of nuts
Other foods it encourages multiple times a week include:
- berries
- beans
- olive oil
- whole grains
- fish
- poultry
Health Benefits:
Research shows that the MIND diet may reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, and studies show that the MIND diet is superior to other plant-rich diets for improving cognition. Research also shows that the MIND diet can help slow cognitive decline and improve resiliency in older adults. It may also help delay the onset of the movement disorder Parkinson’s disease. There is little research concerning the MIND diet and weight loss. Yet, since it is a combination of two diets that promote weight loss, the MIND diet may also help you lose weight. One way it can help promote weight loss is that it encourages limiting your consumption of foods like:
- butter
- cheese
- red meat
- fried foods
- sweets
However, more research needs to be done concerning the MIND diet and weight loss.
Other Benefits:
By combining the best of two diets, the MIND diet has a lot to offer and offers some more flexibility than stricter diets. While you can eat more than the 10 food groups it recommends, the closer you stick to the diet, the better your results may be.
WW (Weight Watchers)
WW, formerly Weight Watchers, is one of the most popular weight loss programs worldwide.
How it Works:
While it doesn’t restrict any food groups, people on a WW plan must eat within their set number of daily points to help them reach their ideal weight. WW is a points-based system that assigns different foods and beverages a value, depending on their calorie, fat, and fiber contents. As you work to reach your desired weight, you must stay within your daily point allowance.
Health Benefits:
Many studies show that the WW program can help you lose weight. For example, a review of 45 studies found that people who followed a WW diet lost 2.6% more weight than people who received standard counseling. What’s more, people who follow WW programs have been shown to be more successful at maintaining weight loss after several years, compared with those who follow other diets.
Other Benefits:
WW allows flexibility, which makes it easy to follow. This enables people with dietary restrictions, such as those with food allergies, to adhere to the plan.
Downsides:
While it allows for flexibility, WW can be costly depending on the subscription plan and the length of time you intend to follow it. Studies show that it may take up to 52 weeks to produce significant weight loss and clinical benefits. Additionally, its flexibility can be a downfall if dieters choose unhealthy foods.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a dietary strategy that cycles between periods of fasting and eating.
How it Works:
Various forms exist, including the 16/8 method, which involves limiting your calorie intake to 8 hours per day. There’s also the 5:2 method, which restricts your daily calorie intake to 500-600 calories twice per week. While it’s primarily known as a diet for weight loss, intermittent fasting may have powerful benefits for both your body and brain. Intermittent fasting restricts the time you’re allowed to eat, which is a simple way to reduce your calorie intake. This can lead to weight loss - unless you compensate by eating too much food during allowed eating periods.
Health Benefits:
Intermittent fasting has been linked to anti-aging effects, increased insulin sensitivity, improved brain health, reduced inflammation, and many other benefits. Both animal and human studies show that intermittent fasting may also increase heart health and extend lifespan. It can also help you lose weight. In a review of studies, intermittent fasting was shown to cause 0.8-13% weight loss over a period of 2 weeks to 1 year. This is a significantly greater percentage than many other methods. Other studies found that intermittent fasting can increase fat burning while preserving muscle mass, which can improve metabolism.
Other Benefits:
While certain diets can have a lot of rules, require frequent trips to the grocery store, and can be difficult to follow, intermittent fasting is known as a more simple-to-follow eating plan. Due to the nature of the diet, there are fewer meals that you need to prepare, cook, and clean up after.
Downsides:
In general, intermittent fasting is safe for most healthy adults. That said, those sensitive to drops in their blood sugar levels should talk with a health professional before starting intermittent fasting. These groups include people:
- who have diabetes
- who have low weight
- who have an eating disorder
- who are pregnant
- who are breastfeeding or chestfeeding
The Volumetrics Diet
The Volumetrics diet was created by Penn State University nutrition professor Barbara Rolls and is meant to be a long-term lifestyle change rather than a strict diet.
How it Works:
The eating plan is designed to promote weight loss by having you fill up on nutrient-dense foods that are low in calories and high in water. Meanwhile, it limits calorie-dense foods like cookies, candies, nuts, seeds, and oils. The Volumetrics diet divides food into four categories based on food’s calorie density, which can be calculated with a formula created by Rolls. These categories are:
- Category one: includes foods of very low calorie density, like non-starchy fruits and vegetables, nonfat milk, and broth-based soup
- Category two: includes low calorie-dense foods, like starchy fruits and vegetables, grains, breakfast cereal, low fat meat, legumes, and low fat mixed dishes like chili
- Category three: includes medium calorie-dense foods, like meat, cheese, pizza, bread, and ice cream
- Category four: includes high calorie-dense foods, like crackers, chips, chocolate candies, nuts, butter, and oil
Meals on the Volumetric diet consist mostly of category one and two foods, with smaller portions of category three and four foods.
Noom
Traditional weight-loss diets often overlook the importance of sustainable behavior change. However, Noom Weight, a digital weight-loss program used by over three million people, takes a different approach. Designed by psychologists, nutritionists and personal trainers, it focuses on behavior change and building long-term healthy habits. By combining food tracking, individualized coaching and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, Noom provides a structured, guided plan to help users achieve and maintain their weight goals.
How it Works:
To get started, simply sign up and download the Noom app, which creates a personalized plan based on an in-depth lifestyle questionnaire. The app offers one-on-one health coaching, daily bite-sized lessons to keep you motivated, and tools to log food and beverages via its database, barcode scanner or food photo logging feature. Additionally, you can track exercise, weight, blood pressure and other health metrics to stay on top of your progress.
What You'll Eat:
Noom uses a unique color-coded food system, which sorts foods into different categories based on caloric density:
- Green foods: These are the least calorie-dense and/or contain the highest concentration of healthy nutrients. Examples include certain vegetables, fruits, egg whites, tofu, tuna, non-fat milk and non-fat dairy products, brown rice, quinoa and oatmeal.
- Yellow foods: These have more calories and/or less healthy nutrients per serving than green foods. They include avocado, salmon, lean ground beef, black beans, olives, hummus and low-fat dairy products.
- Orange foods: These are the most calorie-dense foods and/or have the least healthy nutrients. Examples include full-fat dairy products, nut and seed butters and red meats.
Additional Considerations
The Healthy Eating Plate
The Healthy Eating Plate is based exclusively on the best available science and was not subjected to political or commercial pressures from food industry lobbyists. The Healthy Eating Plate encourages consumers to use healthy oils, and it does not set a maximum on the percentage of calories people should get each day from healthy sources of fat.
Key Components:
- Vegetables: The more veggies - and the greater the variety - the better.
- Fruits: Eat plenty of fruits.
- Whole Grains: Eat a variety of whole grains (like whole-wheat bread, whole-grain pasta, and brown rice).
- Protein Power: Fish, poultry, beans, and nuts are all healthy, versatile protein sources-they can be mixed into salads, and pair well with vegetables on a plate.
- Healthy Plant Oils: Choose healthy vegetable oils like olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut, and others, and avoid partially hydrogenated oils, which contain unhealthy trans fats.
- Water: Drink water, tea, or coffee (with little or no sugar). Limit milk/dairy (1-2 servings/day) and juice (1 small glass/day).
The Importance of Physical Activity
The program recommends getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day and even more exercise for further health benefits and weight loss. It provides an exercise plan with easy-to-follow walking and resistance exercises that will help maximize fat loss and boost mental well-being. If you've been inactive or you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor or health care provider before starting a new physical activity program.
Making a Sustainable Change
To maximize your chances of success, focus on making gradual, sustainable changes to your eating habits rather than resorting to restrictive fad diets. Allow yourself flexibility and strive for healthy choices 85% of the time. Consider these questions to determine the ideal plan for you:
- Does it fit my lifestyle?
- Can I see myself doing this a year from now?
- Does this approach make me feel energized and satisfied after meals?
- Will it support my long-term health goals?
- Does it allow for flexibility when life gets busy or unexpected?
- Will I enjoy eating this way with family and friends?