Top 10 diets, which should I choose?

America top 10 diets

Health magazine has created a list of America’s Top 10 Healthiest Diets (Top 10 Healthiest Diets) to try in 2009. The selection has been done by a panel of respected experts; however, most of the chosen diets have something in common:

a) They are not long-term oriented nutrition plans but temporary weight loss treatments.

b) All of them could be inspired or enclosed in a lifelong diet called Mediterranean Diet, not included in the list.

Most of these diets have a problem: after the goal has been achieved, and many times even before this happens, the person returns to their old habits. Then, the weight gaining process returns in a stronger way, as the body has “learned” that it has to “save” for future scarceness. Also, the diet has created a psychological need for eating certain banned foods, which normally are the more delicious and mouthwatering.

Nothing of this happens with the lifelong Mediterranean Diet, a model which is continued after the problem has disappeared.

Our intention is to compare the “10 Top American Diets” with the Mediterranean Diet, which is in my opinion more “American” than the other ten, as it was discovered by Dr. Ancel Keys, from the University of Minnesota Public Health School, given its name by the International Conference on the Diets of the Mediterranean in 1993, sponsored by The Harvard School of Public Health, the World Health Organization and the Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust, and finally promoted by Doctor Willett, Head of the Nutrition Department at Harvard University. This and no other was the origin of the concept “Mediterranean Diet”. It is true that the dietary pattern was found in the most deprived zones of Greece, Italy and Spain.

Let’s review these top 10 diets:




1. The Structure House Weight Loss Plan

It is, in many opinions, a diet which tries to eliminate the obesity roots. What is hidden behind certain food craving or compulsive and uncontrolled overeating? Most of the time it’s frustration, depression, disappointment and/or boredom.

People do know (better than they care to admit) what they must do to lose weight. The problem is that they need a strong reason to do it.

The book, which can be browsed and bought at Amazon, states: “It’s not food that makes you fat. It’s your eating behavior”

It shares with the Mediterranean Diet things like lifestyle, physical activity, family meetings and spending time outdoors.

2. The Step Diet

The book, for sale at Amazon with a 32% discount on the original price, can be browsed online. You can read things like: “It is more important to count steps than to count calories. 10,000 steps a day” Ok. This is in agreement with the Mediterranean Diet Loss Weight Plan.

3. Weight Watchers

This is more of a strategy that a dietary pattern. People celebrate meeting where they can learn how to handle hunger and beat temptation, where they can choose the right food and forget their problems.
Is this not included in the Mediterranean Diet?

4. The EatingWell Diet

This diet recommends eating well and offers a model very similar to the Mediterranean Diet. Have a look at the recipes. I definitely agree with most of what this diet comprises, as it seems to be a subset of the former. The book, for sale at Amazon, cannot be browsed online, but can be bought at a 34% discount. It gives an idea of its success.

5. The Volumetrics Eating Plan

Nutritionist Barbara Rolls, tell us that there is a fundamental human quality: “Everybody wants to feel full”. She thinks that the best way to lose weight is to eat as much low-calorie food as possible in order to stuff ourselves. It is true that she recommends fruits and vegetables, but this diet can be potentially dangerous if made without medical advice.

The problem is that Dr. Rolls’ starting premise is wrong. People do not need to feel stuffed. People need to feel satisfied, which is not the same. If your stomach is filled with fruits and vegetables until you cannot eat any more, a couple of hours later you will rush to the fridge to eat something “solid”, and you may attack the chocolate, the ice cream or the pie.

The second point is that if you fill up your body every day, and several times a day, you will make your stomach bigger and bigger, needing more and more forage to fill the dilated stomach. Your diet will turn into the “elephant diet”, or even worse, into “the goose diet”. Another reason why this diet might be potentially dangerous is that it will probably be not balanced unless you follow medical control. The book at Amazon can be bought at a 32% discount ,and is browsable online.

Consequently, this is a diet I do not agree with. To feel satisfied you have to carefully choose the food and eat it slowly to give time to your brain to “acknowledge receipt” of the intake, always trying to keep the volume of your stomach in a normal level. As opposed to this diet, the Mediterranean Diet, is perfectly balanced, and includes lots of fruits and vegetables.



6. The Best Life Diet

This diet is nothing but one of the multiple commercial plans more concerned in selling their branded books and products than in addressing the problems of those affected by excessive weight. The “life diet” has chosen its name to transmit the sensation than it can be a lifelong nutrition pattern. If you visit their website you will not find any hint or advice except that “There is no secret to losing weight. It’s simple physics; what you put in vs. what you put out”. How true. For the details about how this diet works, you will have to buy the Bob Greene’s book. It’s for sale in Amazon, and can be browsed and purchased at a 32% discount. Part of the principles of the Mediterranean Diet.

7. The Solution

Another book, another guideline (in the book) and another diet “of the interaction of mind, body, and lifestyle”. The most positive part of this plan is that it targets the root causes of weight problems. The book in Amazon can be browsed.

8. You: On a Diet

The book is also for sale at Amazon and has the option of “Search inside the book”. It has another 34% discount. I read a few pages and it’s a good basic nutrition work. Lots of truths but nothing new. However, it can be a valid guideline.

9. The Sonoma Diet

In this case the book of Connie Guttersen does not allow searching inside, but has a 34% discount. I particularly like this diet because it is a carbon copy of the Mediterranean Diet, wines included. Connie has been very clever in developing a model which by any means is followed by the population of Sonoma, but may help people to be healthier.

10. The Spectrum

The experts liked the holistic approach of this diet, which includes meditation. But setting this aside, this diet is largely influenced by the Mediterranean Diet. The book can be bought in Amazon with a 32% discount on the original price. Once more, you cannot search inside.

About The Excluded Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet implies exercise, activity, healthy nutrition and natural products. Mediterranean Diet means to accept any type of food except artificial ones. Also, Mediterranean Diet means not to despise exquisite delicacies in occasions, avoiding giving appearing in front of others as an eccentric person (object of silent social rejection and mocking in the work environment) who refuses having an exquisite and healthy meal. Most of the diets make your life miserable. This is the reason why they are abandoned after a certain period of time. This does not happen with the Mediterranean Diet. If you follow it you will not have psychological lacks.

But the Mediterranean Diet also means priorities and proportions. Normally it follows a dietary pattern in which exercise, fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates, fish and olive oil are the main ingredients. Also, you can tailor your Mediterranean Diet to either lose or gain weight.

FAQS. POST:

To FAQ 1. ¿Who invented the Mediterranean Diet?

To FAQ 2. Who discovered the Mediterranean Diet?

You may want to go to the Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Plan

Dr. Ancel Keys, who discovered the Mediterranean Diet

(Photo: Front Page of Times: Dr. Ancel Keys, father of the Mediterranean Diet)

You may want to go directly to the Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Plan

Or

To FAQ 1. ¿Who invented the Mediterranean Diet?

*******

FAQ 2. Who discovered the Mediterranean Diet?

Dr. Ancel Keys was who discovered the Mediterranean Diet. He worked at the School of Public Health of the University of Minnesota, and published in 1970 the results of an important study developed in seven countries in which he analyzed the role of the diet in the cardiovascular diseases, establishing the bases of what would be later the Mediterranean Diet.

The research was carried out with more than 12,000 men of Finland, Greece, Italy, Japan, Holland, the United States and Yugoslavia. There were high correlations between the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet of the people, their cholesterol levels and its percentage of death from cardiovascular diseases. Of these seven nations, the United States and Finland had the highest animal product consumption, the highest saturated fat intake, the highest cholesterol consumption and the highest percentage of death from cardiovascular diseases. On the contrary, the Mediterranean countries and Japan were in the opposite pole.

Dr. Keys, who discovered the Mediterranean Diet, in Madrid.

Before that, in 1952, invited by Dr. Carlos Jiménez Díaz, Dr. Keys had spent some time in Madrid. In that one occasion was lodged in the Residence of Students and, with some important collaborators, among which was Grande Covián, developed a first study relating the diet (still was not known as Mediterranean Diet) and the values of cholesterol in the blood. It carried out an analysis between the inhabitants of Vallecas and Cuatro Caminos (two Madrid districts).

The citizens of these districts almost did not drink milk nor consumed meat or butter, and they had the lowest values of cholesterol in the area, presenting – in addition – very low incidences of coronary cardiopathies. The inhabitants of the district of Salamanca, nevertheless, with a much more rich diet in saturated fat, had much higher values of cholesterol. And among them, the cases of myocardium infarct were much more frequent. In Naples he carried out observations with similar results.

The Seven Countries Study.

Coming back to the famous” The Seven Countries Study”, one of the most important discoveries was that the inhabitants of Crete, which obtained more from 40% of his calories from fat consumption, displayed the lowest cholesterol index and associated diseases.  In the Greek island, the percentage of deaths for this reason was 57 times smaller than in Finland. That is what would give later name to the Mediterranean Diet.

Most of the Greek fat intakes proceed from olive oil and olives and, the rest, from cereals, vegetables and generally “blue fish”, with something of meat and derivatives. In addition, they drank wine every day. This is the genuine Mediterranean Diet, almost identical to the diet of many others Mediterranean countries at that time.

Japan was the second country with lower index of deaths from cardiovascular diseases, due to a large extent to a diet with great amounts of fish,  Anyway, the negative aspect was that they had a high rate of deaths by cerebral hemorrhage. The same phenomenon presented some ethnic groups, like the Eskimos.

FAQ 3. Who gave name to the Mediterranean Diet?

In 1993, the Oldways organization, the Harvard School of Public Health and the World Health Organization introduced the concept of Mediterranean Diet, in a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts and defined it as “a delicious, pleasurable, and very healthful way to eat” (Oldways).

Olways leaded the project and created as well the famous and wide world know Mediterranean Diet Pyramid. Its most important feature is all plant foods are grouped together to highlight the health benefits that they grant.

Later and the in the same decade (about 1950), Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University’s School of Public Health promoted the Mediterranean Diet explaining it in a very understandable way.

Hereafter, the Mediterranean Diet became world-wide known as a heart protector and long life dietary pattern.

Recently has been discovered some other benefits of The Mediterranean Diet in other diseases as cancer, Alzheimer, asthma, hyperglycemia, etc.  It is also an excellent source of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory products.

Food pyramid picture of Healthy Eating Pyramid, from Eat, Drink and Be Healthy, by Walter C. Willett and Patrick J. Skerrett

Harvard’s Healthy Eating Pyramid

Talking about food pyramid picture is talk about the “food pyramid fight” that is being developing  for decades.  A fight that always grab the attention of any war journalist. A fight for a cake of 1000 billion US Dollars is taking place all over the world, but more particularly in USA (more than 500 billion). The U.S. Dietary Guidelines are the basis for the school lunch program apart from other important federal nutrition programs for hospitals, nurseries, military kitchens and everyday shopping list of normal consumers. Food industry is very much concern about these issues and a lot of lobbies are working at forced march.

In 1992, The USDA released its Food Guide Pyramid. It was a model in form of illustration of what should be considered the pattern of an healthy diet.   They started teaching it at schools and printed in millions of brochures. They also displayed it in tv programs, in thousands of articles and also included it in food boxes and cereal labels.

The problem is that the United States Department of Agriculture Pyramid did not represent the scientific opinion about this important issue. The model relied in inconsistent evidences but in very powerful influences of food lobbies. See My Pyramid.

The healthy eating pyramid

Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, one of the world’s leading nutrition scientists, declares that the USDA Food Pyramid offers “wishy-washy, scientifically unfounded advice” and leads to “overweight, poor health and unnecessary early deaths.”

Dr. Willett and his team from both institutions have designed their own pyramid, known as the Harvard’s health pyramid. It is based entirely on the scientific studies, not in economic interests, and emphasizes exercise, whole grains, non saturated plant oils, and a reduction in white rice, pasta, and potatoes. It also recommends the regular and moderate consumption of alcohol (beer, wine, or spirits) for all adults unless there are medical or other reasons to avoid drinking.

The Harvard’s Pyramid recommends less red meat that the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. It is very similar to the Mediterranean Diet.