You must’ve heard of the 70/30 rule for losing weight. When it comes to weight loss, 70% of your weight loss depends on your diet, and 30% depends on exercise. Simply put, if you train a lot but eat an unhealthy diet, you won’t lose weight. Contrarily, if you don’t exercise at all but stick to the best diet plans for weight loss, you’ll see positive results.
So, if you’re trying to lose weight, the first thing you need to do is come up with the right diet plan that supports your weight loss efforts. Today, let’s look at the nine best diet plans for weight loss.
Table of Contents
Ketogenic Diet Plans for Weight Loss
Whether you’re actively searching for weight loss diets or not, you must’ve heard of the ketogenic diet, popularly known as keto. This diet is characterized by a high intake of fat, adequate consumption of protein, and minimal intake of carbs. When you eat such a diet, your body enters ketosis, a stage where it uses the stored body fat for energy.
However, you’ll have to say goodbye to your favorite carbohydrates, including bread and rice. Moreover, consuming large amounts of fat can cause problems for some people.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is another popular dieting strategy that focuses on following cycles of fasting and eating. The premise of this plan is to strategically reduce your calorie intake, triggering weight loss.
Two popular versions of intermittent fasting exist:
- 16/8 Method: Of the 24 hours in a day, you only eat in an eight-hour timeframe. You don’t eat anything for the remaining 16 hours.
- 5:2 Method: Eat normally five days a week and reduce your calorie intake to 500-600 twice a week.
Apart from weight loss, intermittent fasting can slow down aging, improve brain health, and reduce inflammation.
Paleo Diet
The paleo diet is an interesting concept in which you only eat foods that would have been available to your Paleolithic ancestors. These include fish, meat, poultry, eggs, vegetables, and fruits. Hence, you need to avoid grains, legumes, dairy, salt, and added sugar. This way, you reduce excess calories and limit yourself to easy-to-digest food, which aids weight loss.
A drawback to the paleo diet is that it requires a significant amount of menu planning. You might need to eliminate a lot of foods that you currently consume and replace them with new items.
Moreover, strictly adhering to a paleo diet can cause a deficiency of calcium and vitamin D. People at risk of osteoporosis should also avoid this diet.
Plant-Based Diet Plans for Weight Loss
The plant-based diet, as the name suggests, included foods derived from plants only. Animal-based products, including meat, eggs, and milk, are strictly avoided. Though many people adopt this diet for environmental and ethical reasons, it can also promote weight loss.
Vegetarianism and veganism are two versions of plant-based diets. Vegetarianism prohibits the consumption of any animals and birds, including chicken, fish, etc. In addition to prohibiting meat, veganism also restricts the consumption of eggs, cheese, and dairy.
Since animal-based products have more calories and fat than plant-based foods, they may help with weight loss.
Low-Carb Diet Plans for Weight Loss
Low-carb diets are quite popular as they’re easy to execute. All you need to do is reduce carbohydrates and replace them with proteins and/or fats. Since carbohydrates are the major source of weight-increasing calories, consuming fewer carbs can help you shed some pounds.
You should avoid a low-carb diet if you have diabetes or are on insulin. Furthermore, increasing protein and fat intake could be harmful to people suffering from kidney and liver disease.
Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet is a type of low-carb diet that has been around for decades. It’s similar to the keto diet, which focuses on reducing carb intake, so your body enters ketosis. However, unlike the keto diet, the Atkins diet allows you to increase your carb intake in the later phases of the plan.
The Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is based on the foods consumed in Mediterranean countries, mainly south European countries like Italy, Greece, and Spain. The diet promotes the consumption of a lot of fruits, vegetables, seafood, whole grains, legumes, and tubers. Some foods to avoid or eat in moderation include meat, poultry, daily products, and eggs.
The Mediterranean diet also restricts eating refined grains, refined oils, processed meats, trans fats, highly processed foods, and added sugar. All these foods increase weight, and therefore, not eating them can help with weight loss.
DASH Diet
The DASH diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet. As you might have already figured, this diet primarily caters to people suffering from hypertension. The premise of this diet is to reduce sodium intake and increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Studies show that apart from hypertension management, the DASH diet can reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity. Scientists have even found it effective against mental health conditions like dementia.
MIND Diet
The MIND diet stands for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. It’s a hybrid between the Mediterranean and DASH diet, with the focus to gain benefits from both the diet plans for weight loss.
This diet comprises foods that slow down or stop cognitive decline. These include vegetables, beans, whole grains, berries, olive oil, and wine. The diet mainly focuses on cutting unhealthy fats and replacing them with fresh, whole foods. Since unhealthy fats can cause weight gain, cutting their intake helps with weight loss.
Conclusion: Best Diet Plans for Weight Loss
Over the years, nutritionists have come up with several diet plans to help people lose weight. However, the core focus of all the diets is the same. You need to reduce the intake of carbs, processed foods, and unhealthy fats and replace them with fruits, vegetables, proteins, and healthy fats.
While changing your diet can help with weight loss, it can cause some problems, especially for people suffering from some health conditions. It is essential to talk to your doctor before making any changes to your diet.
Which diet would you follow for weight loss?
