“New year, new you.”
At least that’s what we all hear every time the calendar turns to January. The most common promises we make to ourselves when making New Year’s resolutions are weight loss, 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 regimens, and intense exercise routines appeal to us in the short term, but can quickly lead to burnout, loss of interest, and even unhealthy habits.
In fact, a study published in the medical journal BMJ In 2020, it was revealed that weight loss diets are often ineffective in the long term, and most of the weight lost by participants is 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.
In the first six months, most participants saw improvements in some health parameters such as weight, blood pressure and cholesterol, but these positive effects almost completely disappeared by the 12-month period (except for the Mediterranean diet, which showed persistent improvements). in cholesterol.)
It can be tempting to get attached to the idea of a fast-acting diet to transform our bodies in the new year, but having a skeptical mind can help you consider 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 floating around as you start the year.
Keto
At a basic level, the ketogenic or “keto” diet focuses on low carbohydrate intake combined with high intakes of fat and protein. Generally, people following this diet get 70% to 80% of their daily calories from fat, about 20% from protein, and about 5% from carbohydrates.
Lack of carbohydrates forces the body into a state of ketosis; Meanwhile, fat becomes the main fuel provider for the body and is theoretically burned for use as energy.
While keto has been associated with weight loss, professionals have warned against this diet for those 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 other important sources of nutrients, 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 Clinical Center for Cardiovascular Health, previously told USA TODAY.
“Theoretically, the keto diet basically mimics starvation,” Mechanick said. “If you’re not eating carbs but you’re consuming excessive amounts of fat and protein, you’re still going to waste tissue. Tissue will still burn.”
Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet has been praised as one of the most successful diet plans available.
It focuses on heart-healthy foods commonly consumed by people in the Mediterranean, such as herbs, legumes, nuts, wheat, fruits and vegetables. Rather than 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 on overall health rather than weight loss, it doesn’t provide simple rules about portion sizes, how often to eat, and other directives often included in similar regimens. Therefore, people hoping for this diet to work need to make a complete lifestyle change over the long term to see results.
New Year’s resolutions:Is this the perfect diet for your New Year’s resolution? This saved us $1000, not calories.
fasting diets
Intermittent fasting has gained widespread popularity recently, attracting the attention of social media influencers, average people, and doctors.
As USA TODAY previously reported, intermittent fasting is a diet plan that focuses on when you eat, not what you eat. It is based on specific periods of fasting and eating that occur over a period of time.
Some of the benefits include reduced calorie intake and greater flexibility in food types, leading to a less restricted mindset around food.
“Intermittent fasting may be worth considering for both health and weight loss goals, but it’s not a magic solution,” registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of BodyDesigns Mary Sabat previously told USA TODAY.
“If practiced consistently and combined with a balanced diet and regular physical activity, it can contribute to certain improvements in health. 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 mostly on protein, vegetables, and fruit. Its name derives from the Paleolithic period in history and is based on the premise that those who followed it ate like the hunter-gatherers of 2.6 million years ago.
Dieters try to mimic the “simpler” foods our ancient ancestors once ate by cutting out grains, dairy, legumes, refined and processed foods, and focus on “whole, unprocessed” foods like vegetables, nuts, seeds, and meat.
“Proponents of the paleo diet believe that eating this way can lead to weight loss, improved health and a reduced risk of developing today’s most common chronic diseases,” nutrition consultant and registered dietitian Jen Messer previously told USA TODAY. Do not support these health claims.”
While the paleo diet can help encourage the inclusion of healthy foods that contain potassium, antioxidants, and other important nutrients and prevent addiction to processed foods, it can also lead to eating habits that are deficient in things like calcium and vitamin D.
This can lead to vitamin deficiencies, 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 carbohydrates rather than total carbohydrates consumed and now comes in two versions: Atkins 20 and Atkins 40.
As previously reported by USA TODAY, the classic diet has four phases that rely on periodically increasing carbohydrate intake: the first phase requires 0 to 25 grams of carbohydrates per day, and the final phase requires 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Unlike other low-carb diets, Atkins also considers fiber and sugars when calculating intake and subtracts the number of carbohydrates you eat based on the food’s other ingredients (if something you want to eat has 10 grams of carbohydrates, but not 3 grams of carbohydrates). If you have fiber and 1 gram of sugar, your net carbs will be 6 grams.)
Atkins also offers pre-packaged foods available for purchase through their program; This means you can pay to get ready-made meals that suit your diet, rather than cooking them yourself.
Like the other low-carb diets on this list, the Atkins diet can easily lead to nutrient and vitamin deficiencies due to heavy restrictions on certain types of foods. It also carries the risk of causing disordered eating, worsening kidney problems, and a low long-term success rate.
Dry January:What are the Dry January rules? Here’s what you need to know if you’re vowing to give up alcohol in 2024.
WW, Noom and other diet apps
Apps are one of the most modern and perhaps most popular solutions to diet and weight loss. From the original Weight Watchers (now known simply as WW) to the newer Noom, there are apps for weight loss, “fitness,” “lifestyle changes” and everything in between.
While we may view these as an easier way to integrate nutritional awareness into our daily lives, the practices can often mislead us because they are generally not run by qualified medical professionals.
“Many apps I’ve seen recommend as low as 1,200 calories a day, sometimes as high as 1,500,” Pittsburgh-based registered dietitian Jessica DeGore, RD, previously told USA TODAY’s Review 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 it can also lead to disordered eating and unhealthy obsessions.
“Whenever we put a negative label on something or put it on a shelf, we tend to desire it more,” DeGore previously said. “And it drives us a little bit crazy and obsessive about food, which I don’t see as healthy behaviors.”
