Healthy Living: 2020 Diet Rankings
If it is your new year’s commitment to eat better or lose weight, tonight’s Healthy Living has some helpful information for you. You’ll find out what health experts say are the best (and worst) diets that are currently trending.
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting
Just two weeks into the New Year, some of you may be struggling to keep up with that latest diet, and some may even be yet to start. Luckily, it’s still early enough in the new year to get healthy eating started right. According to the nutritionist, Doris Sutherland, she hears her fair share of attempts at fad diets.
Doris Sutherland
Doris Sutherland, Nutritionist
“Yes, there are many types of diets that are circulating on the internet on the television or even types of diets that we hear from family members and friends that many people want to try. Some are ago, some do provide some health benefits, and some don’t. It’s always good to learn more about the types of diets so that you know it’s not only for you to lose weight but it is also one you can maintain for a very long time and one that will provide health benefits for you.”
Luckily there is an annual study released by the U.S. News & World Report ranking the popular diets of the day. It looks at things like how easy the diet is to maintain, whether it is balanced, how healthy it is, and it even looks at the taste. And the latest top diet is…
Doris Sutherland
“The Mediterranean diet and the plan based diets as the top two diets of last year. The Mediterranean diet focuses on less red meats, sugar, and less bad fats, and then it also focuses on consuming more fruits, more vegetables, whole grains and also foods that contain omega three found mostly in fish in vegetable oils, seeds, and nuts. The difference between the Mediterranean diet and the plant-based diet is that the plant-based diet excludes all sources of animal protein. They would tend to substitute it with plant protein such as beans, nuts, seeds, and soy as they’re sources of protein. The health benefits of the Mediterranean it calls you to eat less animal protein and helps you control your weight more and especially to maintain your cholesterol levels normal and also your blood pressure levels normal. Now in the plant-based diet, we find that people are actually able to control it even better than the Mediterranean because the plant-based provides foods that are very low in fat very low in salt and low in calories, which allows you to consume larger portions and still maintaining they’re health. We have found that people who do plant-based diets live longer and have a better quality of life.”
Meanwhile, the popular low carb high protein diet, the KETO diet, ranked at the bottom of the list at number thirty-four out of thirty-five.
Doris Sutherland
“We’ve had several people ask about the Keto diet however I try to not persuade them to go that route because of the many restrictions that it has. Normally the kept diet is very high in fat high in protein and the carbs is limited up to twenty grams which is the same thing as a small banana or small apple so you’re not getting any carbs from the kept diet. People that have followed it have experience headaches, nausea, dizziness even loss of memory during the first days of memory during the first days of the diet making it difficult to sustain.”
The Keto diet can be especially harmful to children, pregnant or nursing mothers, and people with diabetes. As for those who do try the Keto diet, they lose some weight, but when they stop as with any unhealthy diet, the weight comes right back many times at higher levels than when you started. This is why, as a nutritionist, Doris doesn’t encourage people to diet at all.
Doris Sutherland
“Normally, I don’t try to use the word diet. Diet is general; it involves all the food that we eat every day. It’s more about eating healthy, knowing how much to eat, what time of the day, and controlling your portions and allowing you to want to include foods that you really like. You need to find something you will enjoy you need to find something that will provide health benefits for you and something that fits your budget as wells something that is easy for you to prepare and well most importantly that taste good because if you are going to be something that you don’t like it’s very difficult for you to follow.”
Like all health professionals, Doris reminds us that there is no magic formula, it’s all about eating less and healthier and being more active.
