Diet Comparisons
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.
