Related news
The start of the new year is always loaded with many well-intentioned resolutions. One that is often repeated, especially on these dates, is to go on a diet, to lose weight or to become healthier. While Spain has always been a country of good eating habits, this hasn’t stopped us from falling into the diet trap miracle and ultra processed foods.
If you need help finding a type of diet that will keep you healthy and fit you perfectly, you’re in luck. Like every year US News & World Report has published a list of the best diets for 2021 based on various starting points, such as the health benefit, the ease of tracking, or the popularity
This traditional classification has been published in the early days of January and for years has the approval of the prestigious Harvard UniversityThe same diet has been on the highest position for four years: the Mediterranean. A diet full of fruits, vegetables, legumes and fish, to which we Spaniards do not always strictly adhere.
The stage of nutrition
Then you share it second place, are the DASH diet and the flexitarian diet. The DASH diet bases its principles on try to lower blood pressure through diet, with thorough monitoring of salt consumption and advocating the consumption of low-fat or low-fat dairy products, in addition to reducing or even eliminating the consumption of foods with added sugars and the consumption of red meat. Likewise, it also suggests decreasing the consumption of saturated and trans fats, in addition to increasing the absorption of potassium, magnesium, calcium, protein and fiber.
The diet flexitarianafor its part, is aiming for less meat in exchange for a weekly consumption of fruit and vegetables. There would be different “levels” of the flexitarian diet, now referred to as “part-time vegetarianism.” But according to studies the more food of vegetable origin and less of animal origin consumed, the better
According to experts, this stage would not be surprising since then the three diets have similarities– They are easy to follow (create stickiness) and focus on what foods to include rather than what to limit. The next diets in the ranking were the Weight Watchers (WW) diet, in third place, the MIND, volumetric, Mayo Clinic and TLC diets in fourth place, and the Ornish, vegetarian and Scandinavian diet, which included the last place.
Commercial diets
This year’s study included what are known as “commercial diets” and among them they highlighted the WW diet or “point diet” and the Mayo Clinic diet as the two best. It also emphasizes the appearance of dieta Noom, which according to the makers is not so much a diet, but a way of life focused on changes in diet.
In fact, it is based on an application also called Noom, where you can find nutritional information and weekly challenges, tools to record progress and record meals, exercise and body weight, virtual training equipment and biometric monitoring. All payments of course.
Experts stress it psychological component associated with the Noom diet, which stands out when compared to other eating patterns, as a particularly relevant part in moments of isolation such as the current pandemic.
For their part, diets like Whole 30 (focused on whole foods) or the familiar cetogenica diet (fat-based), well known and popular, continues to cause some reluctance as compliance is more complex. Both occupied the last positions, namely 35 and 37 of the 39 diets analyzed.
Dieting by 2021 is a difficult goal
Finally, the experts responsible for developing the ranking agree that it would not be a good option to think about “losing weight” or “dieting” in the coming year 2021, but simply eating better: thinking about “dieting” is often a negative thought, and suggest that the past year 2020 was already saturated with negative events between incarceration, social distancing and other security measures.
That’s why they recommend following the guidelines of the three top-rated diets: increase your intake of fruits, vegetables and whole grains only with the aim of improving health. With a few simple changes, you can lose weight on a secondary basis, but not as a primary goal. It is about sustainable, flexible and adaptable eating patterns; and if necessary they even allow for cultural and religious variations.
Health, they stress, would be the ultimate goal. If other objectives are also collateral achieved, the better.