In the new year, diets are the in thing. As we move along, the motivation to diet and keep fit falls by the wayside.
But the fact remains, keeping fit and looking good is a great goal, any time of the year. Therefore, we must keep trying to achieve our fitness and health goals.
If getting your body to look great and improve your health was a goal of yours this year, it’s never too late to start. You can still do it!
Here are some popular diets you can try before 2020 ends.
1. Volumetrics Diet:
Some diets don’t focus on nutritional value and end up straining our bodies. Volumetrics is different.
Created by Dr. Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Penn State University, volumetrics focuses on eating foods with the least amount of calories that will provide the most nutrition for our bodies.
The volumetrics diet is based on four food groups, categorized from high energy-dense to low-energy-dense foods as follows;
- Very low calorie-dense foods with a below 0.6 count
- Low calorie-dense foods with a between 0.6 and 1.5 count
- Medium calorie-dense foods with between 1.6 and 3.9 count, and,
- High calorie-dense foods with between 4.0 and 9.0 count.
Here is how to calculate calorie density.
Examples of high energy-dense foods are those with a lot of sugar such as cakes and cookies. Low energy-dense foods are less sugary or starchy, and some great examples are non-starchy veggies and fruits.
Volumetrics is ideal for people who love to eat a lot.
The idea is to eat a large quantity of low-calorie foods with high nutritional value that you like. It’s a diet created to keep you feeling full from eating the right foods.
2. Vegan Diet:
The vegan diet is popular among animal lovers who, for ethical reasons, avoid eating animal-derived foods such as meat, eggs, and dairy products.
Since it’s a plant-based diet, it provides many health benefits for the body as plants contain many vitamins and minerals necessary for our health.
Studies show that a plant-based diet can prevent type 2 diabetes. It’s also great for weight loss and managing high -blood pressure.
Many people find it challenging to resist non-vegan foods such as meat but with the creation of vegan foods such as plant-based meats, it’s easier to stick to it. The only trick to succeeding in the diet is to avoid vegan foods that aren’t healthy.
It’s also essential to eat food rich in nutrients that we miss by avoiding animal products such as zinc, iron, and calcium.
3. Intermittent Fasting:
Fasting, the act of not eating food or drinking for some time, is an excellent way to improve your health.
Although most people only fast for religious reasons, it’s also an effective way to lose weight.
Intermittent fasting, which requires people to fast for between 12 to 36 hours, is an increasingly popular diet. Apart from weight loss, it also provides other benefits such as;
- Improving brain health
- Cutting down on cholesterol
- Lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes
- Reducing the risk of cancer
- Managing rheumatoid arthritis
There are several ways to do intermittent fasting. You can do the 16/8 method where you only eat for 8 hours in a day. During those eight hours, you can have a few meals spread out.
When fasting, you are only allowed to have low-calorie drinks such as herbal teas.
If daily fasting is not for you, there is the option of fasting a few days of the week. For example, you could fast for 2 days during which you cut down your calories to between 250 -300.
Once fasting becomes easier, you could do it for 24 hours, once or twice a week.
Although fasting for 24 hours seems hard, it’s easy to start after dinner and hold off on eating till the next day at dinner time. You can then drink low-calorie beverages such as tea or water throughout the 24 hours.
These are only three examples of ways you can fast intermittently.
Why Your Diet’s Not Working?
Maybe you’ve tried many diets, and none has worked for you. At this point, you may be asking yourself, “what’s the point of dieting?”
As we’ve shown you above, there are some effective diets that will provide you with lots of benefits if you try them.
However, you need to focus on dieting the right way and eliminating some problems that can pull you back. Here are a few:
1. Not stocking up on healthy foods (and stocking up on unhealthy ones):
If you’re starving and the only thing you have in the house is potato chips, you’ll grab that and ruin your diet. On the other hand, if you had not stocked up on potato chips, you would not have them on hand to grab.
To avoid the trap of bad foods, make meal prep a habit.
Meal prepping is preparing healthy foods allowed in your diet in bulk and storing them in the fridge for later.
You can also purchase healthy snacks and keep them for snacking.
Preparing in advance will keep you on the straight and narrow.
2. Eating large quantities of healthy foods:
It’s important to note that everything you eat is calories. Therefore, eating too much food even if it is healthy, can lead to unwanted weight gain.
For example, smoothies made from high-calorie fruits and vegetables can ruin your diet. Salads with rich, creamy dressings are a problem too.
Processed foods that are meant to be healthy such as meatless burgers can also cause weight gain as they are highly processed.
Therefore, keep an eye on the calories you take, even as you consume healthy foods.
3. Not staying active:
You may feel dieting is enough to help in weight loss but staying active as well is essential. Activity is especially vital when recovering from an injury, as personal injury consultants will tell you.
If you adopt the 80:20 ratio where 80 percent is diet and 20 percent is exercise, you will lose weight in a healthy way and keep it off.
One reason that exercising while dieting helps to keep the weight off is that it increases metabolism.
It also helps tone the body to ensure your skin remains firm as you shed weight instead of getting saggy.
Last words:
These are three popular 2020 diets you can try before the year-end. We also give you an idea of why you may be dieting without results. The bottom line is, it’s not enough to get on a diet, you must be committed to benefit from it. Pick a diet from our list and go for it.
About The Author:
Christopher G. Aiello – Mr. Aiello has a reputable 30+ year trajectory in law practice. Having been selected for multiple recognitions and awards, he practices in the Superior Court of New Jersey in both the trial court section and the appellate divisions, the Workers’ Compensation Court, and Municipal Courts. He has appeared in dozens of televised, print, and internet media; and currently dedicated in full to his law firm.
Image Credit: Pixabay
This article is published by our independent team of health and wellness pundits that publish original and informative content to empower readers to take charge of their health and embark on a physically, mentally, and emotionally balanced lifestyle.
Leave a Reply