Having a healthier diet isn’t as expensive as you think. Believe it or not, the fresh components that constitute a healthy diet can be easily found right in your local grocery store. The key is to acknowledge which foods are processed and which aren’t. When looking for a diet, we’re all looking for something that gives us immediate results, while the truth is that maintaining a healthy diet requires commitment, planning, time, and above all, patience. This is especially true if you are planning to join a diet program that is nutritious, delicious, and promises the results you want.

While a significant part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle is staying lean, it doesn’t necessarily mean that losing weight is good for us. Even though that diet helped you fit into a size 6, it could also be severely affecting your health. Most of these advertised diets cut out whole food groups and solely rely on supplements that may have little research behind them. Some of these supplements may also be cutting down your calories in large amounts. When we’re desperate to lose weight, we often don’t care to look at the means that get us to the end. Losing 5 pounds in one week sounds great, but it isn’t necessarily great for your body. While you’re shedding those extra pounds now, there’s still a chance that you may regain it all back later.

The U.S. News & World Report Diet Programs

The U.S. News & World Report ranked the best diets of 2019, based on each of the 41 popular diets’ safety and nutritional value. From the Mediterranean Diet to Weight Watchers to Atkins, you can have a detailed, personalized look into why some of these diets are healthy or unhealthy for you. Each diet’s profile also includes scientific evidence, common meals, etc. These rankings also give every diet a score based on “healthiness” from 1 to 5. Safety holds double the amount of value than nutrition. Though every one of those diets can be adjusted to make up for their imbalances and deficiencies, sometimes, these modifications won’t make the diets safe.

Who decides which diets are best?

U.S. News gathered a group of nutrition experts to rate all 41 of these popular diets. The experts ranked the diets across seven different categories, creating nine different lists. It’s important to note that The Best Diets for Healthy Eating and Best Diets Overall are very similar to one another. These two ranking lists give high praise to the MIND, DASH, Mayo Clinic, Mediterranean, TLC, and Volumetrics diets.

Many of the diets ranked high on these lists often have the same traits. They all contain high amounts of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and they all have a balance of lean protein, non-fat dairy products, and healthy snacks. Some of these diets even allow the occasional snack. For each of these high-ranking diets, plants are front and center, and the menu is full of meals that are unprocessed and without additives. Due to the popularity of plant-based diets and their great nutritious value, U.S. News created a category showcasing the Best Plant-Based Diets. There is a category that caters to many different food intolerances and sensitivities as well, which has profiles that show which diet eases digestive symptoms best.

Some common diets ranked high on the list:

Paleo: The Paleo diet restricts both grains and dairy, which puts a restriction on the amount of vitamin D and calcium. This diet is typically heavy on meat, so individuals are getting a lot of protein but are losing out on other vital nutrients.

Atkins: The Atkins diet was very popular at the beginning of the millennium. The problem with Atkins, however, is that you’re cutting out carbs completely from your daily meals. It sounds great on the paper, but according to experts, by cutting out carbs, you’re not consuming the recommended amount of total and saturated fats in your daily diet.

Raw Food Diet: depending on how you approach this diet, you can be shorting yourself on nutrients like vitamin B12, calcium, and vitamin D. Another risk to keep in mind with this diet is in the tile, everything is raw. Since cooking in this diet is obviously limited, it might be risking eating strictly undercooked or raw ingredients.

Whichever diet you end up choosing, balance is key here. It’s essential to eat all the major food groups, so try and include in your diet a little bit of everything. You can also allow yourself treats now and then – again, the key to a successful diet is balance and moderation. Try to include protein (fish, chicken, eggs, nuts), fruits and vegetables and healthy fats (avocados, different nuts and seeds).

Source: https://health.usnews.com/wellness/food/articles/what-makes-a-healthy-diet