ByOnlinecourses55
The 3 best diets for light weight loss - nutrition
The Mediterranean diet is the traditional diet that has the most scientific backing, but often, even in the cradle of this diet, we forget what it consists of.
In short, the Mediterranean diet is based on a high intake of fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, legumes and olive oil, and a very low content of red meat, sugars and saturated fats.
The Predimed study -the largest research study on nutrition and health carried out worldwide- has shown that this diet, always with a controlled intake of total calories and enriched with nuts and extra virgin olive oil, reduces by 30% the risk of suffering a myocardial infarction or stroke.
To follow this diet, a series of fixed guidelines must be followed:
This diet is not one of the best known in Spain, but it is enormously popular in the USA, where it is one of the most used by the medical community. The DASH diet responds to the acronym Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and, logically, it was a diet originally designed for people with high blood pressure.
The efficacy of this regimen, which was designed by researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health [NIH], has been proven over time in numerous studies that have also served to further refine the recommendations.
It is a diet fairly limited in calories [2,000 per day], which prioritizes the consumption of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. It also includes plenty of low-fat dairy products, chicken, fish, legumes, nuts and vegetable oils. In contrast, consumption of saturated fats and high-fat dairy products is severely limited. Sugar consumption is reduced to a minimum.
Salt, as is logical in a specific diet to treat hypertension, is reduced and controlled to a daily minimum, which implies banishing from our diet most canned food, sausages and instant soups. However, if you do not have problems in this regard, you can be less strict as far as this part is concerned.
The third diet in the ranking is the newest one, but it has more and more followers. Flexitarianism is a recent neologism -a mixture of "vegetarian" and "flexible"- which was created to designate those people whose diet is fundamentally vegetarian, but do not shy away from meat in certain situations, where being very strict about it can be a nuisance. Although true vegetarians and vegans do not recognize flexitarians as equals, it is a first step for many people who decide to give up meat.
Numerous research shows that vegetarians tend to eat fewer calories, weigh less and have a lower body mass index than meat-eaters.
Logically, the diet emphasizes the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and vegetable proteins, which supplement those that meat would provide [thanks, above all, to legumes]. Eggs and dairy products are also allowed. Meat and fish are only added in very small quantities as an ingredient in pasta dishes or salads.
