The 10 Healthiest Diets

CNN Health just ran an article called The 10 Healthiest Diets In America.  I’m not usually a big fan of CNN Health, they tend to focus a bit too much on celebrity weightloss for me, but I thought this article was really good.  Basically, they got a panel of experts together and rated various diets.  The results are in the article I linked to above.

Notice Anything?

Look at all of these diets and you’ll start seeing some trends:

• Exercise is a vital component – Many diets focus too much on eating and not enough on exercise.  Yes, a healthy diet matters more than exercise when it comes to weightloss, but exercise still helps.  Plus, if your goal is weightloss AND overall health, then exercise is a vital part which cannot be left out.
• Long term – None of these diets is a two week miracle cure.  You’re not going to start these and then see 20lbs lost in the first week.  These are all long term solutions where you gradually change your habits and lose weight.
• Not overly restrictive – Most of these diets aren’t overly restrictive in terms of what you can eat or how much of it.  You’re not forced to consume just cabbage or told to restrict your calorie intake to 500 a day.  These are realistic plan meant to be sustainable for a lifetime.
• Many of these plans have a motivational component – Motivation is key, always!  Without motivation you will never stick to something which you have to maintain the rest of your life.
• Education as well as instructions – Several of these diets try to educate you about food as well as tell you what to eat or not eat.  It’s not enough to just tell someone “eat this” or “don’t eat that”.  It’s also important to tell them why.

Personally, I think anyone can benefit from reading more about these plans.  Most of them are available in book form and I’ve reviewed a few of them on 60 in 3 already.  You may not implement any of these plans 100% but you’ll learn a lot just by reading up on them.