A low-fat, low-calorie diet is an effective way to shed those extra, unwanted pounds. To choose the right diet for you, consider your goals and personality. No diet is right for everyone. You need to find a diet that fits into your life that you'll follow long-term. The key to successful weight loss is dropping pounds and keeping them off.
DASH Diet
The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or DASH diet is an eating plan that aims to improve your cardiovascular health by controlling the food you eat. This diet encourages you to consume mostly grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and lean proteins. Fats, sweets and sodium are limited for better control over cholesterol and blood pressure. However, if done properly you also lose weight.
Reducing Fat and Calories on DASH
The DASH diet is a very healthy way of eating, but whether or not you lose weight depends on how you use the diet. MayoClinic.com recommends limiting your calories to 1,600 per day while on the DASH for weight loss. The DASH diet guidelines require you to limit your fat intake to 27 percent of your total calories and saturated fat to 6 percent of total calories. If you eat 1,600 calories per day this equates to 432 calories from total fat and 96 calories from saturated fats.
Moderate Deficit Diet
The moderate deficit diet as recommended by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute limits the amount of calories you take in. For women, caloric intake should stay around 1,200 calories and a man should consume around 1,600 calories. Try to limit your saturated fat intake to less than 10 percent of your total calories per day and fat to 20 to 35 percent of total calories. On this diet, the food choices are up to you, but you need to be aware of how much fat and calories you consume.
Considerations
A good accompaniment to a low-calorie, low-fat diet is exercise. When you exercise you use energy stores inside your body, like your fat. Exercise also burns calories that count toward an extra caloric deficit. Include 150 minutes of exercise each week; not only will it help you lose weight, exercise keeps your body healthy.
References
- MayoClinic.com: DASH Diet: Healthy Eating To Lower Your Blood Pressure; May 15, 2010
- "Your Guide To Lowering Your Blood Pressure with DASH"; United States Department of Health and Human Services; 2006
- "Exercise Testing and Prescription"; David C. Nieman; 2007
- "Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010"; United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Health and Human Services; 2010
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