You won't endure a detox phase, tire of eating grapefruit or miss your daily bread on the Mayo Clinic Diet. You also won't have to pay to find out what foods to eat or when to exercise. What the Mayo Clinic Diet does offer is a sound approach to a healthy diet, advice about exercise and pointers for staying motivated to lose weight.
The diet offers guidelines for healthy diet in the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid. Using the food volume theory of eating, the plan recommends eating "a generous amount of healthy foods that contain a small number of calories in a large volume of food." With this in mind, the Mayo Clinic Pyramid places fruits and vegetables at the base instead of grains, which form the base for the USDA Food Guide Pyramid.
What to Look for
On the Mayo Clinic Diet, you are advised to eat fruits and vegetables, choose whole grains over refined grains and focus on lean proteins. The foods that fit the plan are readily available at grocery stores, and there are no supplements or specialty foods recommended.
To get you started, the Mayo Clinic Diet website offers the Healthy Weight Pyramid Tool which customizes your eating plan to your age, weight, gender and weight goals. The website offers other helpful advice, including recipes, portion control tools and motivational support.
Common Pitfalls
The amount of food that composes each meal on the Mayo Clinic Diet is presented in servings. This can be confusing and difficult to follow because you need a reference list to know how much food equals one serving. Even more problematic: the amount of food in a serving varies among seemingly similar foods. For example, one serving of brown rice is 1/3 cup, but one serving of wild rice equals 1/2 cup.
There is also a lack of information on serving sizes for refined grains like white rice and pasta. Eating whole grains is healthier than refined grains, but failing to list serving size information for common foods isn't practical.
Finally, the Mayo Clinic Diet website only offers a one-day sample meal plan. If you prefer to follow set meal plans rather than create your own dishes based on general guidelines, you will need an additional service or personal dietitian.
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