|
Probably
the most important things people want to know when they think the time
has come (again) to cut some of the daily food intake is which diet is the best.
Although we are all different beings, we all share the same goal: a
diet that can make us thin in no time at all. Some sort of miracle pill
or eating plan that makes fat go away and never ever return. That’s
actually the second part of the big wish: how to make sure that all the
weight lost through dieting stays lost through the years.
 The more diets published in magazines and on the Internet, the more people are confused about what dieting really means
and about the right way of bringing your body back in shape. The
growing number of overweight people has turned weight loss into an
industry like never before and the market is growing every year. It
seems that nowadays all one needs is a fashionable idea and a flair for
marketing in order to make a lot of money or garner a lot of popularity
by proposing some sort of weird diet, despite the lack of professional
expertise in this field.
And there is a LOT of diets out there.
We’re going to go here only through the best-known diets, since a
review of all the diets floating around the industry would be beyond
the scope of this article.
So let’s start with one of the latest fads of the dieting world:
The Atkins diet.
Pretty much everybody’s head of the Atkins diet, largely due to the
flood of articles praising the extraordinary results, not to mention
the loads of good mail from satisfied customers. The biggest thing in
favor of this diet is that it lets you eat high fat dairy products like
cheese and butter. However, the Atkins diet has fallen from its lofty
perch over suspicions of increasing the risk of heart diseases, not to
mention the proved fact that bigger number of followers complain of
diarrhea, weakness, muscle cramps and rashes. The debate over the
scientific fundamentals of this diet is still raging.
Next comes the Zone diet another well-known eating plan.
This diet is the brainchild of Barry Sears and it’s all about eating
the right mix of foods in order to reach the proper hormonal balance.
This state of balance, which is called the “Zone”, lets the body take
in calories and use them through the day without putting anything aside
as fat. Unfortunately, this diet does some serious discrimination among
foods without any scientific basis. Starchy vegetables, whole grains
and beans are banned, although these foods are not in conflict with the
principles of the diet. The American Heart Association says the Zone
diet lacks essential nutrients while promoting high-protein foods.
The Jenny Craig diet is next on the list.
One of the longest running diets, Jenny Craig started this business in
the early 1980s and it’s still around. The basic idea of this diet is a
trade off: you don’t have to choose recipes, do the shopping and the
cooking, but you have to buy the Jenny Craig prepackaged food. And that
runs to some $100 per week. Plus the membership costs. Plus the
vegetables and fruits which are not included in the prepackaged food.
If you can afford it and if you can stick to it, the diet is pretty
good. However, similar low-calorie foods can be bought at the grocery
store and you don’t have to discuss this with a Jenny Craig expert that
insists on your eating the prepackaged food because he gets a
percentage of the sale price.
From sunny Florida comes the South Beach diet.
This one has the right idea and wrong approach combination down pat.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people have managed to lose weight with
this diet and it actually works. But the question is: can you really
stick to it? The first phase of the diet will eliminate most foods
containing carbohydrates from your daily consumption. Fortunately, this
phase lasts two weeks. Unfortunately, second phase focuses on a
half-hearted return of whole grains and fruits and lasts… as long as
necessary. If reaching the desired weight takes you one year, then
that’s exactly how long this phase is going to last. And if you don’t
like the foods allowed by this diet then you’re out of luck. There are
no alternatives.
And yet another veteran dieting program around is Weight Watchers.
This
is actually one of the best diets around because it puts all the
management tools in the hands of the user. If you are really committed
to losing weight, you have all the information you need to do it. And a
lot of people who are going through the same thing are going to be
there to help you. If having company during difficult times helps your
willpower, then you are probably going to lose all that extra weight.
If, on the other hand, you don’t like the idea of being constantly
under peer pressure, then this diet is not for you. As you can see from
this short review, there are a lot of diets out there, dozens more than
we’ve been able to cover here. The best thing to do when choosing a
diet is to do as much research about it as possible. See what people
who tried it have to say. Then see what doctors and dietitians have to
say about it. Between those singing praises and those trying to prove
the diet wrong you can probably get the truth yourself. Still, pay
special attention to what the doctors have to say. If they tell you a
certain diet will put your body to risk then think twice before trying
it. |
