“New year, new you.”
At least, that’s what we all hear every time the calendar turns back to January. When making New Year’s resolutions, the most common promises we make to ourselves are focused on weight loss, the gym, and fitness.
While there’s nothing wrong with aiming for a healthier lifestyle in 2024, it’s easy to fall victim to a mindset that focuses more on how you look than how you feel. Fad diets, overly strict eating habits and intense exercise routines are attractive to us in the short term, but can quickly lead to burnout, loss of interest and even unhealthy habits.
This is evident from a study published in the medical journal The BMJ 2020 found that weight loss diets are generally ineffective in the long term, with most of the weight lost by participants regained within a year.
The study followed 22,000 overweight or obese adults who followed 14 of the most popular diets, including the Atkins diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and the Mediterranean diet, for an average of six months.
After the first six months, some health parameters such as weight, blood pressure and cholesterol had improved in most participants, but these positive effects had virtually disappeared after twelve months (except for the Medditerarian diet, which showed continued improvements). of cholesterol.)
It’s tempting to commit to the idea of a fast-acting diet to transform our bodies in the new year, but a skeptical mind can help you sort through the short-term solutions and find something that will ultimately work better for you.
Here’s a little more information about some of the most popular diets you’ll see flying around to start the year.
Keto
At a basic level, a ketogenic or “keto” diet revolves around a low carbohydrate intake combined with a high fat and protein intake. In general, people who follow this diet get 70% to 80% of their daily calories from fat, about 20% from protein and about 5% from carbohydrates.
The lack of carbohydrates forces the body into a state of ketosis, where fat becomes the body’s main supplier of fuel and is theoretically burned to be used as energy.
Although keto has been linked to weight loss, professionals have cautioned against the diet for people looking to improve their overall health. For starters, restricting carbohydrate intake so severely causes the body to break down not only fat, but also muscle and tissue.
The strictness of keto can also easily lead to a diet lacking in other important nutritional sources, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
“I wouldn’t recommend the keto diet to anyone,” Jeffrey Mechanick, medical director of Mount Sinai Heart’s Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Clinical Cardiovascular Health, previously told USA TODAY.
“In theory, the keto diet basically mimics starvation,” Mechanick said. “If you don’t eat carbohydrates, but you eat excessive amounts of fat and protein, you’re still going to waste tissue. You’re still going to burn tissue.”
Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet is praised as one of the most successful diet plans available.
It focuses on heart-healthy foods most commonly eaten by people in the Mediterranean region, such as plants, legumes, nuts, wheat, fruits and vegetables. Instead of focusing on restriction and elimination, the Mediterranean diet focuses on healthier alternatives, such as replacing butter with healthier olive oil and red meat with fish and poultry.
Because this diet focuses more on overall health than weight loss, it does not provide clear guidelines on portion sizes, how often to eat, and other guidelines often included in similar regimens. Therefore, for people to make this diet work, they must commit to a complete lifestyle change in the long term to see results.
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Fasting diets
Intermittent fasting has gained widespread popularity recently and has attracted the attention of social media influencers, ordinary people and doctors.
As previously reported by USA TODAY, intermittent fasting is a diet plan that focuses not on what you eat, but when you eat it. It relies on regular periods of fasting and eating within a specific time period.
Some of the benefits include reduced calorie intake and greater flexibility with food types, leading to a less restrictive mindset around food.
“Intermittent fasting may be worth considering for both health and weight loss goals, but it’s not a magic solution,” Mary Sabat, a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of BodyDesigns, previously told USA TODAY.
“If practiced consistently and combined with a balanced diet and regular physical activity, it can contribute to certain health improvements. However, individual results may vary, and it is important to approach it as part of an overall healthy lifestyle.”
paleo diet
Paleo is another low-carb diet that focuses mainly on proteins, vegetables and fruits. The name is derived from the Paleolithic era in history and is based on the premise that those who follow this name must eat like the hunter-gatherers of 2.6 million years ago.
By cutting out grains, dairy, legumes, and refined and processed foods, dieters try to emulate the more “simple” foods that our ancient ancestors once ate and focus on “whole, unprocessed” foods such as vegetables, nuts , seeds and meat.
Nutrition consultant and registered dietitian Jen Messer previously told USA TODAY that “Proponents of the paleo diet believe eating this way can lead to weight loss, better health and a reduced risk of today’s most common chronic diseases,” though she said, “ scientific evidence does.” no support for these health claims.”
While the paleo diet can help promote intake of healthy foods containing potassium, antioxidants and other important nutrients and discourage dependence on processed foods, it can also lead to eating habits lacking in things like calcium and vitamin D.
This can lead to vitamin deficiencies, an increased risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, low blood sugar, kidney stones, constipation, heart disease and eating disorders.
Atkins diet
Another low-carb diet option, Atkins, focuses on net carbs rather than total carbs consumed and is now available in two versions: Atkins 20 and Atkins 40.
As previously reported by USA TODAY, the classic diet has four phases, based on periodically increasing carbohydrate intake: the first phase requires 0 to 25 grams of carbohydrates per day and the final phase includes 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Unlike other low-carb diets, Atkins also takes fiber and sugars into account when calculating intake, subtracting the number of carbohydrates you record as eaten based on the other content of the food (if something you want to eat has 10 grams contains carbohydrates, but 3 grams of fiber and 1 gram of sugar, then your net carbohydrates would be 6 grams.)
Atkins also offers pre-packaged foods for purchase through their program, meaning you can pay to receive prepared meals that suit your diet, rather than cooking them yourself.
Like other low-carb diets on this list, the Atkins diet can easily lead to nutritional and vitamin deficiencies due to heavy restrictions placed on certain foods. It also runs the risk of eating disorders, worsening kidney problems, and a low long-term success rate.
Dry January:What are the Dry January rules? What you need to know if you’re giving up alcohol in 2024.
WW, Noom and other diet apps
Apps are the most modern and perhaps one of the most popular solutions for dieting and losing weight. From the original Weight Watchers (now known as simply WW) to the newer Noom, there are apps for weight loss, ‘fitness’, ‘lifestyle changes’ and everything in between.
While we may see them as an easier means of integrating nutrition awareness into our daily lives, the apps can often mislead us as they are generally not administered by qualified medical professionals.
“Many apps I’ve seen recommend only 1,200 calories per day, sometimes 1,500 calories,” Jessica DeGore, RD, a Pittsburgh-based registered dietitian previously told the USA TODAY’S Reviewed team. “We recommend 1,200 calories for toddlers, so I would never recommend that for a full-grown adult.”
Logging your calories and exercise can help with mindfulness and intentional eating, but can also lead to disordered eating and unhealthy obsession.
“Every time we put a negative label on something or put it on a shelf, we tend to crave it more,” DeGore previously said. “And that makes us a little crazy and obsessed with food, which I wouldn’t consider healthy behavior.”
