Diet : 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.