What Is The Best Diet To Follow?

The best diet to follow is the one that fits your lifestyle and that you can adhere to for the long-run. Ultimately, losing weight comes down to your ability to create a negative calorie balance and burn more calories than you consume. No magical combination of macronutrients, supplement or superfood makes this equation irrelevant. You will not lose weight if you are eating too much. All major health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and the Harvard School of Public Health advocate following a portion- and calorie-controlled diet combined with increased physical activity as the way to lose weight.

Role of Calories

Reducing calories is the single feature that makes a diet successful. Researchers from Harvard University compared four diets in a study published in a February 2009 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Each diet featured a different combination of fats, carbohydrates and protein. The researchers discovered that, regardless of how the foods were combined, as long as the diet reduced calories, it resulted in meaningful weight loss.

Poor Food Choices

You could lose weight by eating junk food, as long as you burned more calories than you consume, but it would not promote health, high energy levels and you might get quite hungry. The biggest problem with fast food, fried foods and sweets are their calorie density--meaning they pack a lot of calories into small servings. A diet consisting of these foods would consist of small serving sizes and would not be very satisfying. For example a Quarter Pounder with cheese from McDonald's contains 740 calories and that doesn't include another 380 calories from a medium French fries and 210 calories from a medium soda. At home, you could prepare a sandwich consisting of 3 oz. of grilled chicken, a whole-grain roll, a slice of low fat cheese and enjoy cut-up vegetables and 2 tablespoons of hummus on the side for under 500 calories and tons more nutrition.

Types of Foods

Sticking to foods that are close to nature--such as fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, lean proteins, low-fat dairy and whole grains--can make your diet a success. These foods offer optimal nutrition and satisfaction. Limit of avoid processed carbohydrates like white sugar, white flour, high-fructose corn syrup which tend to be void of nutrients and high in calorie---thus contributing to weight gain. Avoid foods such as full-fat dairy, fatty meats, poultry skin, butter and palm oils, which contain high amounts of saturated fats--which contribute to weight gain and correlate with the onset of cardiovascular disease, says the American Heart Association. Man-made trans fats, found in processed baked goods and commercially fried foods, should be avoided at all costs---they increase your bad cholesterol levels while decreasing your good and contribute to weight gain, reports the American Heart Association.

Considerations

Every person has different preferences, schedules, stress levels and hunger cues. A diet that works for your particularities will be more likely to lead to success. Do not follow a diet simply because it worked for your neighbor or best friend--ask yourself if it will work for you. If you work late nights and hate to cook, a diet consisting of complex recipes would probably not be a good choice. Some diet programs recommend eating six times per day, but if you have a job or schedule that doesn't permit this, you might be better off with three primary meals. The type of diet you follow is less important than your ability to adhere to it, as confirmed by a study in the International Journal of Obesity published in June 2008.

Exercise

A diet may yield weight loss without exercise, but it will take longer. Exercise helps to increase the number of calories you burn in a day, making it easier to create a negative calorie balance. When examining the results from the National Weight Control Registry, a group of people who have lost an average of 66 lbs. and kept it off for at least a year, the American Council on Exercise found that 89 percent of them found success by combining diet and exercise--while only 10 percent succeeded using diet alone.