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Biggest Loser Diet

Biggest Loser Diet

The Biggest Loser Diet consists of three parts to losing weight: lower your calorie intake, exercise and maintain the weight loss. The diet is built on the Pyramid weight loss system, which counts down from 4 to 1.

You eat the most from the food group that helps you feel full for longer. So the first group would be fruits and vegetables and you’d eat four servings. Next would be lean protein for the three, the two would be whole grains and the one would an additional category for foods that were low in calories.

The diet works because it teaches people to eat the right kinds of foods, in the right portion and to get moving. Health benefits that this diet are good for besides weight loss include minimizing the possibility of developing diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and heart events such as heart disease or a heart attack and some types of cancer.

There have been some studies showing that following this diet can also help you lower your risk of getting things that impair cognitive function such as Alzheimer’s. The diet isn’t difficult to put into practice.

You’ll want to make sure that you eat filling foods like fruits and vegetables. If you’ve ever looked this diet up, you’ll know that there are a lot of resources out there on how to accomplish your goals.

The foundation of the diet is found in these resources and you’ll have to know those in order to follow the principles. The diet works by jump starting your nutrition. This is helpful for someone who wants a quick start for losing weight.

There’s also a short term six week resource you can get and one that addresses your overall body and life. In these guides, you’ll find stories from people who followed the Biggest Loser diet and found success.

You’ll also learn how to create your meal plan and important exercise tips. The diet breaks foods down by 45-30-25. The majority of your eating, or the 45 percent, will focus on carbs. The thirty is for your protein and the remaining twenty-five percent is for fats.

There are several things that you can do to help yourself succeed on this diet. Keep a food journal to help keep yourself honest about what you’re eating. On top of that, write down all your successes throughout the day - such as you chose an apple instead of a candy bar.

Or write down the fact that you exercised even when you didn’t feel like doing it. Find a support partner to help keep you accountable and to give you support and encouragement.

Start a habit of moving after you eat. If you eat, you go for a walk or clean a room. Do something besides sitting down. Since exercise is a big part of the success of this diet, you might want to get a fitness tracker and some great workout clothes and shoes. You’ll also want to buy whatever version of the Biggest Loser guidebook that addresses the goals you’ve set for yourself.

DASH Diet


DASH Diet

There are some diets that target a specific health issue and the DASH diet is one of those diets. The acronym means Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. When the diet is followed according to the guidelines, if you have high blood pressure, then being on the diet will bring those numbers down.

If you’re someone who’s at risk of developing hypertension, then using this eating plan can help keep you from getting it. The other benefit to this diet is that it will help you shed any unwanted pounds.

One of the reasons for the success of the diet is because it’s customizable. You can set the diet up according to your preferences. The diet isn’t an overall, everyone just eat the same way kind of plan.

Instead, it works by breaking up dieters according to whether or not they’re male or female and their age groups. The diet also uses how active someone is as a guideline to determine their eating plan.

Those who are more active will eat differently. It’s this personalized attention that’s made this diet so successful. To get started, the person wanting to do the diet would match his or her criteria to how many serving sizes and how many calories he’s supposed to consume each day.

Those who are more active will have more calories, but this calorie determination is different between the genders. What makes the diet so popular is that the list of food items that you’ll eat are normal, healthy foods that you can easily find at the grocery store.

All the foods that you’re eat are those like fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, low-fat dairy, healthy fats, and lean meats as well as things like chicken and fish. The diet focuses on making sure the foods that you eat give you protein - which helps keep your energy levels up as well as keeps you feeling full so you’re less likely to reach for junk food.

The DASH diet recommends that users eat 4-5 servings of vegetables every day - the same for fruits. The guidelines for grains are between 7 and 8 servings while your meat calories should be two servings for the average dieter.

Your dairy and fats should be limited to between 2-3 servings a day, while things like nuts or beans can be eaten between 4 to 5 times throughout a week. Success with the diet is determined by the tools or preparation you use with it.

You should get a meal plan or book that can give you guidance about what to eat so that you have meal suggestions. It’s easy to start a diet when you have a plan to follow and it’s easier to stick with it that way as well.

Another key to success is to make diet changes in small increments.  It’s easier physically and mentally to ease into it rather than make sweeping changes. You’ll want to make sure you do prep work for the food ahead of time.

So it would be helpful to have single serving food storage containers as well as things like food processors to cut the food ahead of time. You may also want to look at appliances like roasters than can help you prepare your meals in a healthier way.

Engine 2 Diet

Engine 2 Diet

The Engine 2 Diet is a diet that’s the brainchild of a former firefighter. This diet is one that focuses on being what’s called “plant strong” - which means that you eliminate meat and certain other foods from your eating plan.

The goal of the diet is to live a healthy lifestyle that keeps health problems and diseases from occurring while at the same time contributes to you losing weight. The diet is good for reversing things like diabetes and can prevent cardiovascular disease and heart events, Alzheimer’s and some cancers.

It’s also good for lowering cholesterol numbers and you will lose weight by sticking to the plan. How the diet works is based on the teachings that eating a plant based diet is better for the body and for the health than eating foods from animals.

Some believe that this is a type of vegan diet but it’s not because it doesn’t allow some foods that a vegan diet does allow. You’ll mostly be eating foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes.

The diet has two choices for you to make once you decide that you’re going to do it. You have to choose whether you’re going to call yourself a firefighter or a fire cadet because there are two different plans for each of the labels.

If you make the firefighter choice, your eating style immediately changes. You’ll stop eating anything that’s animal based and you’ll also stop eating foods that are processed. You’ll cut out vegetable oils as well.

Under the fire cadet form of the diet, you’ll start the healthier eating plan at a slower pace and add the changes gradually. Both of the diets feature the twenty-eight day challenge method.

During the first week of the diet, you eliminate dairy and junk type foods as well as processed ones. Then in week two, you start eliminating dairy, meat, poultry and fish. During week three, you’ll stop eating oils and foods that have oils in them.

By the time the fourth week arrives, you’ll up your plant based food intake. Your meals will consist of vegetables, whole grains, seeds, fruits, legumes and nuts. This is how you’d start out if you chose the firefighter plan rather than the fire cadet one.

To find success with this diet, you will need to watch the videos on the diet’s website to learn how to begin. The website will lead you through the preparation and show you what foods you need to get rid of if you have them in your house.

You’ll need to prep both your refrigerator and your pantry. While certain areas of the online resources are free, you will have to pay monthly for anything extra. One of the must-have tools for the diet is the book that teaches in depth how it works. It shows users how to plan and create meals.

Flat Belly Diet Program

Flat Belly Diet Program

The Flat Belly Diet Program is one where you can lose as much as fifteen pounds in about a month along with abdominal fat. The diet bases its success on learning about monounsaturated fatty acids and their role in shedding belly fat.

The diet was created by a dietician and a past editor at Prevention magazine. It can be used to lose weight or as a preventative for health problems. This plan is good for heart health because it helps lessen visceral fat.

This kind of fat is what has been linked to diabetes as well as cardiovascular health problems and other health conditions. People who followed this eating program did end up losing inches and belly fat according to studies done on the diet.

The way that the Flat Belly Diet Program works focuses on eating in such a way that you use the diet to eliminate belly fat. The monounsaturated fatty acids help you feel fuller while at the same time helps you curb the desire to want to eat more than you should.

You’ll find these fats that eliminate belly fat in a range of foods and some of them are surprising - such as chocolate. It’s also found in items like olive oil, nuts, avocados and seeds to name a few.

But the diet doesn’t just work because you eat those foods. You have to eat a specific amount of these foods at all of your meals as well as when you snack. These types of fats don’t lead to heart attacks or heart disease because they don’t cause trouble for your arteries.

Another good thing about the diet is that it focuses on eating healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, fish and more. It’s this healthy eating that not only helps you shed weight, but works to maintain weight over time.

The calorie restrictions on this diet are at a suggested 1,600 per day. However, dieters have the option to customize that amount according to their lifestyle, gender and age. The program begins by kicking off with a jumpstart to help get rid of bloating to get you going - and then guides you on a month long program.

You’ll be able to follow - not only specific meals - but recipes and shopping lists as well. To succeed with this diet, you’ll want to get the program that’s geared toward your gender - since the guidelines are somewhat different.

Though the diet is easy to follow, there is some prep work you’ll need to do ahead of time when you’re planning your meals. Those who follow the diet using online tools or who buy the books for the diet generally do better on the program than those who try to wing it on their own.

HMR Program

HMR Program

The HMR diet is a program that teaches users how to eat right at home through lowering their calories. It’s for losing weight as well as weight maintenance so dieters can keep the lost pounds off for life.

The plan is good for several health benefits - including lowering the odds of getting cardiovascular disease, of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

The diet is also known to help lower the odds of having a heart attack. It works based on a healthy way of eating rather than following any type of fad concepts and there is a strong emphasis on eating fruits and vegetables.

There are two phases to the diet. In the first phase, those on the program are guided to drop weight fast. While losing weight slowly is what many diets focus on, in the beginning, losing weight fast serves two purposes.

One, it jumpstarts the weight loss program, your metabolism and helps the dieter to feel encouraged by seeing early results. The diet has what’s called a Quick Start kit and in this kit, you’ll be able to eat according to the diet’s guidelines for 21 days.

You will have to supply the extras that aren’t included in the meals - which are namely the fresh foods required. On this plan, every 14 days, you’ll have food boxes delivered to your home.

The purpose of this is to make sure that you’re getting foods that are nutritionally sound while watching both the calories and portion sizes. It’s also done so that you will always be able to maintain your weight loss.

This phase focuses on a 3-2-5 strategy. You’ll consume HMR shakes, main courses and fruits and vegetables you prepare during this step. During the time that you’re receiving these food boxes, you’ll also be taught how to adjust your life so that it adopts a healthier way of eating and thinking about food.

This particular stage of the diet is one that you have to stay on until you’ve lost the weight that you want to lose. You can leave this stage when you feel like you’ve learned what you need to and can handle the food on your own.

In the next phase, you’ll get monthly food boxes rather than every 14 days. This lets you focus on using what you learned about better food choices. It also allows you to keep the weight off that you lost in the first phase.

There is guidance from weight loss experts available with this diet to help you with emotional motivation as well as staying on track. In the second phase, you’re encouraged to exercise to help with weight maintenance.

The success of this diet depends on eating the prepared foods that are delivered as well as you understanding how to eat on your own once that’s over. It also depends on you knowing how to prepare foods in a healthy manner such as baking, roasting, steaming or grilling foods versus frying.

If you don’t have a steamer, grill or roaster at home, those are kitchen appliances that you may want to invest in so you have a healthy way to make the food when you’re in the second phase.

Jenny Craig Diet

Jenny Craig Diet

The Jenny Craig diet has a proven track record of helping people lose weight and has been around for more than three decades. The diet is one that bases weight loss on healthy eating and is customized for each individual client.

This is a diet that’s good for people who want to lose weight or for those who want to maintain their health such as by preventing certain diseases like type 2 diabetes. It’s also a good choice for anyone who wants to eat in a way that’s better for their heart - since following the plan can lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

The basics of how the diet works is through calorie reduction done by limiting portion size that will result in weight loss. The eating portion of the diet uses food items that are lower in fat.

To ensure that dieters are eating healthy and maintaining portion control, the program uses prepacked meals along with recipes. The plan urges dieters to move more and to change the way that they think and act about food since behavior is linked with how much a person eats.

Dieters have the option of having their own personal consultant, which can help train and support the member from the time they begin the weight loss program. The consultant teaches things like what you should be eating and the portion sizes.

This is taught - along with the prepackaged meals - for the purpose that when the dieter is finished losing the weight, he will be able to eat healthy on his own. The amount of time that you’ll have to stay on the program varies, since it will depend on the amount of weight that you’d like to lose.

To find the starting calorie amount for each individual, the person’s present weight, height, age and gender are taken into consideration. This is figured along with whether or not you’re an active person.

Those who are more active have a higher calorie level than those who aren’t. You’ll get a week’s worth of food on the program, but you’re encouraged to use food outside the program as long as it fits into the list of acceptable foods such as fruit, vegetables, low fat dairy and fats that are good for you.

Once you’ve lost half the weight you want to lose, you’ll move on to using more of your own meals following the recipes rather than relying mostly on the packaged meals. The meal plan you’ll receive is drawn up specifically for you and you’ll also get an exercise program as well as meetings with your Jenny Craig consultant.

You can choose between two programs - the regular one and the one for people who have type 2 diabetes. The food choices and the guidance are different for those with diabetes.

To be successful on this diet, you do need to commit to buying the meals and preparing fresh fruits and vegetables at home. You’ll probably want a food chopper and some refrigerator containers to store portion sized foods for that.

You’ll need to follow the recipes at home and if you’re eating out, you’ll want to plan ahead by consulting with your food coach. The diet does recommend that you take a multivitamin while you’re on this eating plan so you’ll want to prepare ahead of time with those if you’re not already taking some.

Low Carb Diet

Low Carb Diet

A low carb diet is one that restricts the amount of carbs that you eat like the ones that you find in fast foods, junk food, sweets, fruits, breads, starchy vegetables and pastas. On a diet like this, you switch out those foods for healthier ones vegetables, and lean meats.

A low carb diet can help you lose weight fast. It can also help you with other things like lowering your chances of getting diabetes. It lowers blood pressure, cholesterol and your risk of getting heart disease.

Studies have shown that following a low carb diet is better for your heart than one that is higher in carbs. How the diet works involves more than cutting back on your carbs, because most people assume that certain foods that are thought to be healthy, such as fruits, are low in carbs.

But just the opposite can be true. Bananas are higher in carbs and depending on the size of the fruit can contain twenty or more carbs per serving. Grapes also have a higher carb count than fruit such as cantaloupe or plums, which both have about seven carbs.

The diet teaches that when you’re making a food choice, choose the lower carb one. For example, between potatoes, which have around fifteen carbs or carrots, which have about seven, you’d choose the carrots.

But a better option would be to choose vegetables that grow above the ground because these generally have fewer carbs. Cauliflower has four carbs. Avocados only have two. Spinach goes lower than that and only has one carb.

That’s why it’s important that you know the carb amount of what you’re eating. The diet focuses on carbs that are not refined. Some refined carbs are food items like bread, cookies and cake.

These are also known as simple carbs. You want to choose foods that are low carb and contain natural complex carbs. These help you feel full longer and also help you lose weight.

When you cut your carb intake, it helps with your glucose control, which in turn helps maintain insulin levels which burns fat. A low carb diet focuses on fish and seafood, low carb cheese, eggs, meat, and non-starchy vegetables as the main food items.

It does limit fruits. Since your body does need fruit, you’ll have to know which ones are the lowest in carbs – like strawberries and blackberries. The amount of carb intake you’ll want to use depends on several factors, but on average, a low carb diet is 100 grams or less.

If you want to, you can go to a 50 or less low carb diet or even go ketogenic at 20 or less. To find success with a low carb diet, you should focus on eating as low carb as possible without counting calories.

You should eat until you’re not hungry. If you snack, choose something like a boiled egg or cheese cubes. The tools that you’ll need for this diet depends on your knowledge of low carbs.

Most people don’t know enough about which foods have what amount of carbs to wing it without some kind of guidance. So for that reason, you should invest in a low carb diet book or join an online monthly low carb membership program to get the help that you need.

Mayo Clinic Diet

Mayo Clinic Diet

Many people are looking for a diet that’s healthy that will teach them about nutrition and exercise for weight loss because they’re not sure how to go about getting started on a long term weight loss plan - or even which one is the best for their overall needs.

The Mayo Clinic Diet is the answer to what people are searching for. It’s an easy to follow diet with a main goal of helping people lose weight by teaching them to eat in a way that  promotes - not only weight loss, but good health as well.

This diet is good for people who want to lose weight, those who want to maintain their current weight, and people who want to lower their blood pressure or glucose levels. It works for those who have prediabetes or who have already been diagnosed with diabetes.

When you first start on the plan, you can expect to lose weight quickly the first week or two. After that, you’ll lose weight steadily every week - but in low increments. Losing one to two pounds a week is all you want to do because people who lose weight slower tend to keep it off.

The way that the diet works is by changing the way that you eat and showing you how to leave behind the food choices that aren’t good for you in exchange for ones that are. The diet follows a food pyramid created just for the plan.

On this pyramid, your eating plan will consist of foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables. It’s all about showing people what a difference food density can make in the way that you feel.

Food that’s higher in calories (such as junk food) means that you get less of that food, because it has fewer - if any - nutrients – so you’ll end up feeling hungry, faster. You can get twice, sometimes three times the amount of food with a healthier choice than you would get with one that isn’t.

A small snack cake won’t fill you up, but a cup or two of sliced vegetables will. There are two parts to the Mayo Clinic diet. The first one is called Lose It and the second is called Live It.

In the first part, you’ll learn what changes you need to make in the way that you eat. The good news is that you can eat a lot of things like vegetables and fruits. The diet doesn’t ban any foods - it simply teaches dieters what a better choice is.

It also teaches you how to break habits that lead to poor eating choices as well as overindulging - such as eating mindlessly while watching television. To enjoy success with this diet, track all of your goals and note when you reach them.

Make sure you exercise daily. Some of the things you might want to buy to help yourself on this plan include the Mayo Clinic Diet book, and exercise tools such as DVDs and exercise equipment.

Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet is one that’s good for your heart. It’s a way of eating that uses everyday foods cooked in a way made popular by the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

This healthy style of eating focuses on creating recipes with local foods, but you don’t have to live near the Mediterranean to be able to eat the same way. This diet is a good one for people who want to lower their blood pressure, take care of their heart, lower their cholesterol or lose weight.

Along with dining on great tasting food, you’ll also be able to enjoy a glass of wine with your meal. You’ve probably noticed that the healthiest diets focus on eating things like fruits and vegetables and watching your fat intake.

This diet does that - but goes several steps further to teach you how to cook the meals in certain portion sizes so that you not only reduce your risk of cardiovascular diseases through lowering your LDL, but you get in the best shape of your life.

Studies have shown that the diet can also lower your risk of developing other diseases such as Alzheimer’s as well as some cancers. How the diet works is simple. You focus on building the main part of your eating plan around plant foods - which are mainly things like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

You’re encouraged to eat things like legumes and can have nuts on this diet as well. The diet guides users into switching out the fats that are bad for your heart and your weight with ones that promote health and can prolong your life.

That means using healthy oils such as extra virgin olive oil rather than cooking with butter. It does call for the reduction of salt, which in people who have hypertension is known to raise blood pressure because it makes the body hold on to extra fluid.

In the place of salt, you’ll use herbs and spices that are not only better for you, but give food an extra pop of taste as well. On this diet, you will have to cut back on red meat. Red meat isn’t that good for your heart and by replacing some of the consumption of that with things like poultry or fish, you’ll eat healthier.

What a lot of dieters like about this eating plan is that drinking red wine, which is good for the heart, is allowed. It’s easy to find success with this diet with some preparation that you can do ahead of time.

Make time to cook. That means if you have busy weeks, cook some meals on the weekend so you’ll have them ready when you’re too hungry or it’s too late to cook. Make enough of each meal for lunch leftovers for the next day. When you’re getting started with this eating plan, look for the quickest, simplest recipes first so you’ll find it easier to get started.

Mind Diet

MIND Diet

The Mind Diet is a mixture of two diets. It uses the teachings from the DASH diet along with the Mediterranean diet to create a way of eating that can benefit the brain. The acronym means Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.

It was created by a health professional in the field of nutrition when a study was done on the effects of aging and the brain in relation to certain nutritional foods. The study showed that when study volunteers stayed on the MIND diet, their risk of developing cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s was lessened by more than fifty percent.

According to the study, participants who didn’t fully follow the MIND diet and only followed part of it, still lowered their risk of getting Alzheimer’s. The findings of the diet study were backed up by prior studies that showed that people who consumed leafy green vegetables had less risk of cognitive problems developing.

The diet is not only good for helping to slow cognitive decline and improve memory, but it’s also good at helping to lower blood pressure numbers and also lower glucose levels. Following the diet is also good for the health of your heart.

How the diet works is a matter of focusing on eating foods that are known to promote good health - not just for the brain but for the entire body. The concept is one that’s easy to follow, so most dieters find this way of eating less complicated that some healthy eating plans.

You have a list of ten foods to choose from. You’ll load up on vegetables from one group and you’ll need to eat a vegetable as part of one meal at least once a day. Choose plenty of leafy green vegetables like spinach and consume these foods at least six servings per week.

You’ll need to eat something from the nut group for five servings within a week. For the fruit group, you especially want to focus on berries such as blueberries since they can reduce the effects of aging on the brain along with the conditions that often go along with aging such as dementia.

You’ll focus on eating something from the bean group three times a week and whole grains at least three times a day. You’ll want to have fish once a week while using poultry as your meat source twice a week.

The diet calls for the use of olive oil in cooking because the extra virgin form of this oil is known to reduce brain degeneration, protect memory and lowers the risk of plaques that are a mark of Alzheimer’s.

The diet also has followers drink a glass of wine every day. There are five foods that you do have to limit your consumption of - these are butter/margarine, red meat, cheeses, sweets and fried or fast food.

A way to have success with this diet is to get some of the helpful tools that go with it. You can get a MIND cookbook and you may find it helpful to get a diet journal to track your weight loss progress.