The number of diet programs to choose from is nearly unlimited and they include programs for medical conditions and for weight loss. When evaluating a well-known diet program, consider whether it will help you achieve your goals in a healthy way. Some famous diet programs include a balanced lifestyle approach, a food delivery diet, and a low-carbohydrate diet.
DASH Diet
The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, diet is a famous diet program and lifestyle change. According to Mayoclinic.com, following the diet can lower blood pressure by eight to 14 points within weeks and reduce your risk for diseases like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. On the diet, you eat six to eight servings of grains and four to five servings of fruit and of vegetables per day. Each day also has two to three daily servings of low-fat dairy, two to three healthy fats and fewer than six servings of lean protein. You can eat nuts, seeds and legumes four to five times a week and you limit sweets, alcohol and caffeine. A variation of the DASH eating plan involves lowering sodium from the 2300mg daily value to the 1500mg value that the Institute of Medicine recommends. Since the DASH diet emphasizes portion control and healthy eating, following this diet may also lead to weight loss even though its original purpose was to lower blood pressure.
Nutrisystem
Nutrisystem is a well-known diet program that delivers your meals. In a typical day on the program, you would eat a prepared breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert from Nutrisystem and supplement the prepared meals with a recommended snack that you purchase from a grocery store. The diet works by cutting calories without restricting a particular food group. You can choose the meals you want to eat or go with their default menus. Nutrisystem plans are lower in calories for women than men and the plans include vegetarian options. A sample day's menu is a double chocolate muffin, chicken and pasta, macaroni and cheese and a cookie from Nutrisystem plus light yogurt and blueberries that you purchase from the grocery store.
Atkins
The Atkins nutritional approach is a famous low-carbohydrate diet program. The theory is if you keep your intake of net carbs low enough, you will lose weight because your body will use stored fat instead of dietary carbohydrates for fuel. The net carb count in a food is the difference between grams of total carbohydrates and dietary fiber. Induction is the first and most restrictive phase in which you eat about 20g net carbs per day in order to jumpstart weight loss. You can eat fats, meat and cheese and low starch vegetables. During the second phase, ongoing weight loss, you increase net carbs to 40 to 60g by increasing cheese and vegetables and adding some fruit and nuts. The third phase, pre-maintenance, involves increasing net carbs to slow down weight loss. In lifetime maintenance, you have about 45 to 100 net carbs per day to maintain weight. You can increase this amount by exercising.
References
- MayoClinic.com: Weight Loss: Choosing a Diet That's Right For You
- MayoClinic.com: DASH Diet: Healthy Eating to Lower Your Blood Pressure
- Nutrisystem.com: How It Works in Three Easy Steps
- American Heart Association: Your Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure with DASH
- MayoClinic.com: Atkins Diet: What's Behind The Claims?
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