1. Gain While You Lose
Dr. Dean Ornish, a medical doctor who was originally developing a diet for his heart patients, developed the Ornish Diet. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Ornish Diet is the best diet plan to help prevent and even reduce heart disease. The Ornish Diet can reduce the risk of cancer and better manage the symptoms of diabetes and high blood pressure. The weight loss benefits are actually just an added bonus.
2. Stocking Your Shelves
The Ornish Diet doesn't involve counting calories or weighing portions, making it easy to adopt. It is basically a list of foods you can and can't eat. Foods you can eat in unlimited quantities are beans and legumes, whole grains and all fruits and vegetables. You can also eat only fat-free dairy items like milk, yogurt, and cheese in limited quantities. The diet also allows you to incorporate nonfat or low-fat premade dinners usually found in the frozen foods section of your grocery store and frozen desserts as long as they only contain a very small amount of sugar.
3. Take These Off Your Grocery List
As with any diet, there are plenty of foods that are off limits. In the Ornish diet these include all red and white meats, even fish. Avoid margarine, salad dressings and any other products containing oil. Also avoid avocados, olives and all nuts and seeds. All sugar is prohibited including, honey, molasses, and any products with corn syrup or high-fructose syrup. Finally, you'll have to give up any alcoholic beverages to follow the Ornish Diet.
4. It's Not All About the Food
As with most diets, this one emphasizes incorporating an exercise plan with it. Dr. Ornish suggests a half hour of moderate exercise every day or an hour session three times a week to accompany his diet plan. Walking, riding a bike, playing your favorite sport and even doing house or yard work are all considered moderate forms of exercise. Meditation, yoga and other stress management techniques are recommended.
5. Nobody's Perfect
While the benefits of the Ornish diet are great for your health, there are some drawbacks as well. The most obvious one is the restrictiveness of the diet. Most Americans enjoy a wide variety of foods, including meats and sweets from time to time. Cutting these items from your diet completely can be challenging unless you're already a vegetarian. The foods you can eat on this diet are very high in fiber, a quality that can cause gastrointestinal problems and decrease the absorption of nutrients. As with any vegetarian diet there is also the risk of not getting all of the nutrients recommended in a well-balanced diet. Finally, some of the dietary restrictions limit the amount of fats that are actually helpful in maintaining good health.
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