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Our Registered Dietitians are specialists in nutrition. We provide our clients with a personal meal plan that is customized to meet the needs of the individual, based on your lifestyle and food preferences. Contact us today to schedule a visit.

Descriptions of Ten Popular Diets

You’ve completed a seven-day balanced meal plan for your client, plus ideas for dining out, etc.  You’ve spent the better part of an hour demonstrating how to ‘guestimate’ portion sizes of meat, dairy, vegetables and fruit, and send your client on their way with a journal to log their meals so they can report back to you in a week. 

Next week he or she shows up and says, “What about the Cookie Diet?  My friend lost 10 pounds in one week!  I’d like to try that one.”  

From medically-approved to celebrity-endorsed diets, there are dozens of programs to choose from. A study published in the January 2005 Journal of the American Medical Association concluded rightly that the diet used to lose weight is less important than matching the right diet to the client. The best approach is to find a meal plan that suits your client’s food preferences.  

Here’s a brief description of 10 popular diets:

• Low Carb: On Atkins or South Beach, the initial two-week ‘induction’ phase recommends a mere 20 grams of ‘net carbs’ daily, which promotes ketosis and weight loss.  The eat ‘all you want’ of protein and fat helps jump-start weight loss, however dieters generally regain more weight when they return to their ‘usual’ diet.  Both diets advocate severe carb reduction initially, and a gradual adding back of healthy unrefined carbs. Atkins is more liberal in protein/fat choices compared to South Beach.  Need to know: if your client is doing ‘no carb’, they generally lose a lot of initial (water) weight, but weight loss is temporary if the program isn’t followed as written.  
  
  
• Glycemic Index: The glycemic index ranks foods based on the how quickly they elevate blood sugar levels compared to the same quantity of a reference food (pure glucose or white bread).  The concept is controversial, because the Index doesn’t consider portion size, preparation method, or how the food works in combination with other nutrients.  This diet puts foods into a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ category and it’s an awkward and artificial way of choosing foods.  Need to know: A consensus issued by the American Dietetic Association says there’s insufficient research to show that the glycemic index of a food has any effect on weight loss or gain. 
  
  
• 40/30/30:  Barry Sears published the Zone diet years ago, which suggested that eating about 40 percent of calories from carbohydrate, and 30 percent each from fat and protein will help people stabilize blood glucose and lose weight.  Other health experts including the Joslin Diabetes Center advocate this nutrient ratio. Need to know: the type of carbs, fat and protein are key to this program.  Unrefined carbs including whole grains, fruits and vegetables (not juice); unsaturated fats from nuts, fish, olives and avocado; lean proteins. In this combination, foods have a lowerglycemic impact.  
  
  
• Very Low Fat: An Ornish or Pritikin-type diet doesn’t focus on restricting calories, instead recommends eating until satisfied of the ‘allowed’ foods.  Studies show improvement in blood cholesterol and blood pressure with this high fiber, low saturated fat approach.  Need to know: vegetarian diets promote healthy hearts and digestion—but usually require more planning and prep, but today’s marketplace has convenient options for vegetarians.   
  
  
• Weight Watchers diet: Employs a patented system that assigns point values to foods and the dieter is allowed a set number of points (equivalent to food calories) daily depending on their weight goals. Need to know: dieter is supposed to assign points to healthy foods within context of balanced meal plan: watch for people assigning points to ‘favorites’ instead of nutritious foods.
  
  
• The Cookie Diet:  If it sounds too good to be true…this diet has been popular in different guises for years.  Franchises offer ‘doctor supervised custom programs’, including lab testing and examinations.  The ‘original’ cookie diet is a very low 800-calorie diet, with the dieter eating six ‘special’ cookies (when hungry) throughout the day (with eight glasses of water), plus six ounces of lean protein and one cup of vegetables for dinner—that’s it. Need to know:  this is a very low calorie diet (VLCD): as franchised requires expensive lab work, and is seriously lacking in adequate calories/nutrition. 
  
  
• The 3-Hour Diet: Jorge Cruz recommends a smart strategy of eating smaller meals more frequently (approximately every three hours)—avoid distracting hunger pangs while reducing calories—staying fueled (and hydrated) helps the dieter maintain motivation and energy.  Need to know: Any reduced-calorie diet can be modified into a “3-hour diet”.  Unfortunately, the website reads “Lose Up to 10 Pounds in Just 2 Weeks by Eating Every 3 Hours” which is not recommended for permanent weight loss.  
  
  
• The Blood Type Diet:  Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s best seller advocates eating according to your genetic heritage.  Depending on your ‘ancestry’, (Caucasian, African or Asian) and blood type (O, A, B, or AB), your diet includes ‘highly beneficial’ foods to ‘promote immunity and healthy weight’.  Need to know:  weight loss happens by reducing calories:  the dieter is restricted to specific foods, however all meal plans are balanced nutritionally, and the pattern of three meals and three snacks helps the dieter combat ‘diet fatigue’.
   
• Meal-Replacement Diets:  Studies show that meal replacement such as shakes and bars can help people lose weight.  For people who need extreme structure and don’t want to take the time to prepare meals, a shake and piece of fruit helps them stick to their allotted calories for weight loss.  Need to know: dieter takes in large amount of artificial sweeteners and ingredients and some bars and shakes are more like desserts: can help as a temporary way to ‘jump-start’ a controlled-calorie program.
  
  
• Raw Foods Diet: Advocates of a raw foods or ‘living foods’ diet say that cooking destroys important nutrients and enzymes, and that eating only raw, unprocessed and unpasteurized foods will promote immunity and longevity.  Need to know: eating only uncooked foods is unnecessary for good health.  Overcooking food depletes nutrients, but cooking is recommended for safety reasons (meat, fish, poultry) and even enhances nutrition (for example, cooked vs. raw tomatoes). Think of all the foods rendered edible through cooking; root vegetables, dried beans, legumes.