6 Popular Weight Loss Diets And Their Benefits

Weight loss is something that people all over the world are battling every day. It’s incredibly difficult to find something that sticks, and the reason behind that is that you need to find something that fits your needs while cutting down on everything else. It’s hard to stick to a new routine and kick out the old habits, but once you find the right method, you can keep much better control over your eating habits. If you’re going to achieve the weight loss you’re aiming for, you need to do things right, and overachieving is something that can detriment your health greatly.

Understand that if you cut down too much from your diet, you could be leaving yourself malnourished, which can have severe effects on your body and mind. It’s best to make sure you’re not going below a healthy intake of calories daily. Everyone’s bodies are different, so it may be best to check with a professional if you want to make the most of it.

Vegetarian

The vegetarian diet is one that people choose for a number of reasons. There’s plenty of reason to take up the vegetarian diet, but it’s also a great way to help you lose weight. You’re avoiding a lot of the unhealthy foods out there, fast food is off of the menu, and you’re dodging all of the hormones that are used in meat-based meals. The main draw to this diet is, of course, no longer supporting the meat industry in favour of animal rights, your religion, or the heavy impact it has on the environment.

Any reason you choose this diet is valid, so long as you know how to maintain your body while doing so, as there’s a lot of nutrition that you’re going to have to make up for once you cut out the meat.

So other than cutting out on the fatty meat-based meals, what are you gaining? Well, those who are on a vegetarian diet are found to have a much healthier heart, a reduced cancer risk, and lower blood pressure. All the while you’re losing weight along the way!

Finding alternatives on protein can be easy, but iron is something that you can’t afford to miss out on. You can compensate by indulging in more starchy foods, which contain fibre, calcium, and vitamin B.

Vegan 

If you’ve never cut out any groups from your diet before, it can be quite difficult to jump straight onto being a vegan. It requires a drastic rethink of what 'traditional' meals and some forward planning before it becomes second nature. The vegan diet contains no meat, nor animal-produced food - so no meat, eggs, milk, or anything that contains something that has come from an animal for example honey. It is, however, a lifestyle that can be lived healthily if you manage to create a solid diet.

The vegan diet carries all of the same benefits as the vegetarian diet, but you have a lot more nutrients that you have to make up for. If you’re living with a steady and healthy vegan diet, you may find that it’s a lot richer in some nutrients than other options would be. You’re relying more heavily on foods like nuts, beans, grains, fruit, and veg, and due to that, you’re going to be receiving more of the benefits that these foods bring you.

If your diet isn’t properly planned and you’re not balancing enough in your meals, you could miss out on iron, iodine, calcium, zinc, and a number of different vitamins. Just like the vegetarian diet, you should consider seeing a professional help you plan it or buy supplements to help make sure your body is getting everything it needs. You could find what you need from brands like Rheal, which allows for a range of different choices to fill in the gaps.

Intermittent fasting

Unlike vegetarian and vegan, intermittent fasting doesn’t include cutting anything out of what you currently eat. Of course, you should still be eating a lot of different foods to make sure your body gets what it needs, but you can continue eating freely. The difference here is that you’re only eating within a specific time window. The most popular timeframe is within eight hours per day. This is also known as the 16:8 diet, where you eat during the eight-hour window, and then you fast for the next sixteen. It’s an easy diet to follow, you just have to make sure you don’t eat anything during your fasting hours.

If this doesn’t sit right with you, there’s also a different approach people take with it called the 5:2 fasting plan. This is where you would eat as you normally would for five days a week, and then limit yourself to two of them. These two days don’t need to be consecutive, but you’re only supposed to eat a 500-600 calorie meal each day. Just keep in mind that going below that can be dangerous to your health.

Why is this diet so popular nowadays? Well, it’s quite flexible and doesn’t always require you to give up on any kind of food. So long as you eat within the eight-hour window and avoid increasing your eating, you should see results over time. You can still eat fast food, meat, all of the meals that you love to eat. If you are a sensible eater, eating within these time windows is a great way to help you limit your calories. Knowing that you’re past your time will prevent you from snacking, else it’s all for nothing.

Some studies have shown that intermittent fasting can improve your blood pressure, physical performance, diabetes, and even your memory. 

Raw food

If you’re unfamiliar with it, the idea of a raw food diet might sound very unappealing or even strange. It’s something that people have been doing for years, and it’s only recently become more popular. The basic idea is that you stop eating food that’s been cooked, refined, pasteurized, or treated with unhealthy chemicals. That doesn’t necessarily mean eating raw meat but instead turning towards other food that can be eaten raw. 

This diet can go hand in hand with vegetarian and vegan diets, but some do choose to include raw fish and eggs into their balance. It’s claimed that this diet doesn’t require you to take supplements and that it can bring about a whole range of different benefits as well as weight loss, including; higher energy, better health, and improved vitality. 

What exactly do you eat on a raw food diet? Your options are very limited, so you should do your research heavily before you give it a go. The diet mostly consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, nut milk, fermented foods, and seaweed. As mentioned earlier, some do prefer to include fish and meat in their diet, but it’s not necessary.

Mediterranean 

While it’s not typically for targeting weight loss, the Mediterranean diet can be a good way to lose it. It has a reputation for keeping the meals interesting and appetizing, without really having to cut too much out from your palette. It includes plenty of rich meals and provides a number of health benefits as well as weight loss. 

It gets its name from the style of eating that it has been based on. The diets of the Mediterranean countries, in which the people who follow this diet have been noted to be healthier than those of other countries.

For this diet, you don’t have to cut out too many of your options, but it does drop things like red meat and processed food items. While that does rule out a large amount of fast food, you can still make very tasty meals with the options available to you in this diet plan. Fruit and veg, nuts, fish, and whole grains are going to be your main focus, and there are hundreds of different recipes you can follow to keep things interesting.

Following this diet will naturally help you lose weight as you’re restricting the less-healthy foods from your diet, and seeking better ways to fill in the gaps. You’re also going to be at less risk of chronic disease, have better heart health, reduced inflammation, and you’re protected from type 2 diabetes.

Keto

If you’ve been paying attention to all of the different diets around, the keto or ketogenic diet is something that you’ve likely heard of by this point. The main point of it is to cut down or cut out your carbs, and replace them with fat. That means no more bread and much more sources of fat like meat or nuts. The reason for doing this is because your body will no longer rely on the carbs that you intake, and instead burn the fat as fuel instead. This state is called ketosis and is a healthy way to supply your body with energy while burning fat.

Things like meat, eggs, fish, and cheese are all things that are great to eat during a keto diet, as they’re all very low in carbs while packing a lot of fat. Remember, you have to eat a lot of fat, which might seem counterintuitive, but you’re making up for the lack of carbs in your body.

The reason this diet helps you lose weight despite increasing the fatty foods in your diet is because of your body going into ketosis. Your body is burning your body fat for energy, instead of the carbs that you’re usually eating - so you may expect to see relatively fast results. This can be quite a difficult diet to stick to if you have a hard time cutting out certain groups.