Healthiest Diets
Thousands of diet plans exist, and most of them are truly terrifying. From fad diets, juice cleanses and diets consisting entirely of protein bars or liquid products, most diets on the market are not worth even trying. In this post, we sort past the junk and give you five of the healthiest diets out there sure to help you feel your best.
Now, if you do not want to try one of these diets or you already have an eating style that works for you, that is cool! However, if you are looking for a new diet strategy you can follow for life, check out the diets below!
Five of the Healthiest Diets in the World
Here is the list of five of the healthiest diets in the world.
- Flexitarian Diet
- Mediterranean Diet
- DASH Diet
- Flexible Diet
- Intuitive Eating
Flexitarian Diet
The Flexitarian diet is a mostly plant-based diet that allows people to eat a bit of meat and some animal products. Going strictly vegetarian or vegan can be restrictive and difficult for most people. However, the Flexitarian diet allows some flexibility while you cut back on animal products. This diet includes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, oils, dairy and the occasional meat product.
The Flexitarian Diet can help you focus the bulk of your calories on nutrient rich, plant-based foods without feeling restricted. Additionally, this diet also allows you to get the health benefits of the occasional animal product, like B12 vitamins, iron and calcium.
The Flexitarian diet approach can help you manage your weight, get enough fiber, and may reduce the risk of certain cancers and health conditions.
Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean Diet is an eating style focused around whole grains, beans and legumes, fish, fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy, nuts and seeds. It focuses on healthy foods and reduced consumption of processed foods, red meat and animal based fats. This kind of diet may help you manage your weight, reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers, and may help boost mood and may even help fight depression.
One nice thing about the Mediterranean diet is that it is also quite flexible and does not revolve around intense calorie restriction, making it a diet plan you can use for the rest of your life.
DASH Diet
The DASH diet is short for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. This diet was designed in part by the NIH. This style of eating stresses fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy as well as some meat, fish and poultry products. Additionally, the DASH diet is limited in sugary beverages, red meat, animal based fats and trans fats.
This diet plan has some clinical success in reducing blood pressure and the risk of gout.
The DASH diet plan has different food exchanges and sample plans ranging in calorie intake from 1600-3100 calories, so this plan is customizable no matter your daily calorie needs.
Flexible Dieting
With flexible dieting, you are given a target daily calorie range, in addition to target daily macronutrient values for fats, carbohydrates, protein and fiber. This eating style allows you to eat any foods that you like in moderation, as long as you come reasonably close to your target calorie and macronutrient goals for each day.
Flexible dieting is similar to a nutritional budget. If you have high calorie needs, you have a large budget. You have a lot of wiggle room for more treats in addition to normal healthy meals.
If you have lower calorie needs, you have a lower budget. This means you have less wiggle room for treats and discretionary foods.
Flexible dieting can help people learn that there are no good or bad foods and approach their eating with moderation. This approach can help people unlearn rigid food rules they may have picked up from diet culture.
Intuitive Eating
Developed by two registered dieticians, intuitive eating allows you to simply follow your internal cues.
With intuitive eating, you are encouraged to eat when hungry and stop when mostly full. No foods are off limits, but you are encouraged to eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods.
This plan is easy to follow for life!
Healthiest Diets for You
This article contained information about five of the healthiest diets in the world. What is your favorite healthy diet? Have you tried any of the diets in the list? Let me know what your experience has been like in the comments below!
