This Year's Best Diets - Which One Is the Right Diet For You?

US News & World Report released their ratings of the best diets for this year. See the two pictures below (available on the Internet).

This article is about the best diet for you. First, you need to answer a very important question:

What's the purpose of dieting?

The diet you pick depends on the answer to this question. For example, you might want to pick a different diet for weight loss than you choose for heart health or if you are diabetic.

Here's the US News categories of diets:

Weight-Loss

Diabetes

Heart Healthy

Healthy Eating

Commercial (not sure why this category was included)

Plant-Based

Easiest Diets to Follow

Before you choose a category, read a quick analysis of the diets below . . .

The Weight Watchers Diet scores #1 in the Weight Loss and Easiest Diets to Follow categories.

The Dash Diet scores #1 in the Best Diabetes and Best Diets for Healthy Eating categories.

The TLC Diet scores #2 in the Best Heart-Healthy and Best Diets for Healthy Eating categories.

It appears the the Dash and TLC diets exist to improve and maintain health, while the Weight Watchers diet is perfect for weight loss.

Obviously, you should pick the diet that best meets your needs according to the categories mentioned above.

You also should remember a basic fact - if you choose a diet like Weight Watchers (or Jenny Craig), you will lose weight faster than most other diets. On the other hand, after you lose the weight, you are stuck with finding an eating plan for life. Otherwise, you will return to the same old habits that put on the weight in the first place.

So the bottom line - pick a diet that best meets your needs AND is an actual eating plan for life. The examples are the Dash Diet (my pick because of a family history of heart disease) and the Mediterranean Diet (also heart healthy).

Your choice - do you want to pick an easy diet to follow for weight loss and then get pulled back into yo-yo dieting because you don't have a maintenance plan?

One thing you may want to consider if weight loss is your main goal - pick an eating plan so that when you reach your goal you already have a maintenance plan .

AND

Gradually incorporate increased activity to speed up your progress. If you haven't been active in a while, a simple activity like walking can help with weight loss. Once you get used to walking, walk with hand weights or pick up an exercise DVD you can handle. Remember that perhaps the biggest weight loss accelerator is strength training, so your DVD should include some form of resistance workouts.

AND

Stay motivated.