With the New Year comes ambitious weight loss goals, but actual lifestyle changes are needed to really drop the pounds and keep them off. However, according to fitness website Shape.com, most people are distracted from making real, positive changes by the barrage of fad diets that only temporarily solve weight problems.
“We want a quick fix,” explained dietitian Holly Herrington of the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at Northwestern University. “You hear over and over again from dietitians, nutritionists and reputable media outlets that the most sustaining weight loss comes from making lifestyle change, but as Americans we’re drawn to that instant gratification.”
Herrington said that after the holidays most people want to lose “vanity weight”—that seven to 10 pounds people pack on from Thanksgiving through New Year. For these types of concerns, fad diets actually work well. But the solution is temporary.
“If I’m following a diet plan such as the HCG Diet, where I’m eating 500 calories a day, I’ll lose weight,” she said. “But I’ll lose a lot of water weight, and some muscle, and since I can’t sustain that kind of restriction for more than a couple of weeks, I’ll probably gain all the weight back when I quit. Not only that, but I’ll gain it back as fat, not muscle.”
For people looking for real, lasting weight loss, lifestyle changes are necessary. But that doesn’t mean people have to restrict themselves to exercise-and-diet regimens. According to MyHealthNewsDaily, some popular diets actually prescribe the changes necessary to become healthier as well as thinner.
One such example is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. Named by U.S. News & World Report as 2012’s “best diet overall,” the DASH diet works to prevent and lower high blood pressure. Deborah Enos, a Seattle nutritionist, added that the diet also has “incredible nutritional value.”
Second-best diet for 2012 is the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) diet, aimed at lowering cholesterol. The Mayo Clinic diet—designed primarily for weight loss—came in at third place. All three diets were described as “easy to follow,” which Enos says is the most important aspect of any dietary plan in ensuring that dieters will actually succeed.
For those interested specifically in weight loss, the U.S. News & World Report named the Weight Watchers Diet, the Biggest Loser Diet and the Jenny Craig Diet as the most effective and healthy options. The best diets for healthy eating were the DASH diet, the TLC diet and the Mediterranean diet.
Rankings were compiled by a panel of 22 experts in diet, nutrition, obesity and other areas, MyHealthNewsDaily said.
Diets were ranked based on how easy they were to follow, their short-term and long-term weight loss effects, nutritional completeness, their safety and their potential for preventing weight-related health concerns.
