Should you have brown rice rather than white? Here's some diet plan for you

The questions on diet are endless. This is why we scour the internet for the perfect diet, leading to only more confusion. Here are some popular diet plans

Mediterranean

A panel of experts who used a rather complex methodology to rank the top 40 among the hundreds of diet plans for the US News & World Report picked the Mediterranean way of living as the winner. This diet is backed by research and is highly recommended by experts for being nutritionally balanced and sustainable as a lifestyle choice.

What’s in it?

The Greeks may differ from the French, but they share common principles when it comes to food. This isn’t a meal plan that tells you exactly what to eat. Instead, the Mediterranean diet pyramid teaches you to get your priorities right. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts have no substitutes. And, you must replace salt with herbs and spices, butter with olive oil or canola oil and refined sugar with honey and jaggery, wherever possible. “It is particularly helpful for heart patients and women and is highly recommended,” says Shikha Sharma, founder of NutriHealth in Delhi. Mediterranean countries have seafood in abundance (take your pick). But don’t fry the fish. Instead, grill or sauté it with canola oil. Have this twice or thrice a week. The diet recommends limiting red meat to thrice or less a month. Also, switch to low-fat dairy. But it isn’t a Mediterranean diet if it has no wine. Raise an occasional glass if your doctor allows it. Otherwise, grape juice will do just fine.

Pros

• Balances all food groups

Cons

• Fresh produce (seasonal fruits and vegetables), nuts and seeds and Greek yogurt make it an expensive package

• Does not count the exact amount of servings for each meal and can be confusing

Dash

DASH, or Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, is tailormade to counter rising blood pressure. The idea is to lower the LDL (bad) cholesterol — which helps lower blood pressure — and increase the HDL (good) cholesterol that has cardiovascular benefits.

What’s in it?

The US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute helped create the DASH diet, which shares top spot with the Mediterranean diet and follows similar principles, but rather more strictly. Six to eight servings of whole grains; six servings of meat, poultry and fish; and four to five servings of fresh fruit and vegetables, along with fat-free dairy, are a daily necessity (one serving equals one ounce or 28 gm). Each week must include about five servings of nuts, seeds and legumes and three servings of fats and oils. The only other number you must remember is that sodium intake is capped at 2,300 mg a day, to begin with, and eventually brought down to 1,500 mg. So, go easy on the salt, but you can treat yourself to one serving of sweets a week. Celebrity nutritionist and founder of Nmami Life, Nmami Agarwal, who guided Manushi Chhillar to the Miss World crown, says while diets are tailor-made for each individual, she recommends DASH to people with hypertension. “It lowers the sodium levels and that works,” she says.

Pros
 

• DASH has proven effective against hypertension

• Low in fats and sugar, it is helpful in fighting diabetes. It can help you shed the extra pounds, and keep them off

Cons
 

• Since it’s not a commercial diet, it does not come with pre-packaged meals and does involve quite a bit of cooking

Flexitarian

The word is a healthy union of two words: flexible and vegetarian. Holistic health guru Micky Mehta swears by vegetarianism — inching towards veganism — and says a wholesome vegetarian diet can prevent and cure a host of diseases. The theory that powers the diet is that vegetarians consume fewer calories than their carnivorous counterparts and weigh 15 per cent less and have a lower body mass index.

What’s in it?

A flexitarian diet is big on switching from animal-based protein to plant-based substitutes. But flexitarians are vegetarians who like eggs and who can even enjoy an occasional steak. So, tofu, along with lentils, peas, nuts, seeds and eggs — categorised here as the “new meat” — are commonly found in the recipes.  It also comes with a cheat sheet on vegetables that taste like meat. The diet starts with a five-week meal plan broken down into breakfast (300 calories), lunch (400 calories), snacks (150 calories each) and dinner (500 calories). The plan can be tweaked according to your height, weight, age and daily activity level.

Pros
 

• Can be tweaked to become a pure vegetarian — or vegan — diet

• With all the fruit and vegetables that replace the meat, it’s a diet dense in micronutrients

Cons

• Can be restrictive for non-vegetarians as it focuses on eating less meat

Keto

The modern Keto diet comes from the therapeutic Ketogenic diet, which rose to prominence for its effectiveness in controlling seizures in children with neurological disorders. Keto completely eliminates carbohydrates and substitutes it with more protein and fats. It takes the body into a state of ketosis — where fats are burned for energy — that can help in rapid weight loss. Keto has many takers for its short-term results but the diet comes with a note of caution from nutritionists. “The diet is not sustainable for long durations and must be followed under a doctor’s supervision,” says Sharma of NutriHealth.

What’s in it?

Unlike most other diets, the focus here changes from consuming lean meats to fattier meats (such as chicken thighs, salmons and bacon). While oils like olive, avocado, canola and flaxseed remain, clarified butter or ghee finds its way back on to the menu. And mayonnaise is a welcome salad dressing. While it does focus on more protein intake, a Keto plan prefers grass-fed meat over processed and recommends against refined sugar in all forms. Grains, which are an Indian staple, have to be completely avoided along with most dairy (except butter and cheese). Fats make up for over 70 per cent of the diet, while carbs are reduced to 14-20 gm daily. A more popular version of the diet, “Keto in 28” by Michelle Hogan, is a four-week meal plan. The dramatic switch can lead to carb withdrawal, which only eases in the third or fourth week. In limited research, Keto has been associated with rapid weight loss without affecting muscle mass and overall physical strength. But nutritionists consider it a fad or “crash diet”, which they say proves to be harmful in the long run. “You may quickly lose weight, but you gain more in the long run, which then becomes even more difficult to shed,” says Mehta. Nutritionist Agarwal says she is absolutely against completely eliminating a food group and advises against the Keto diet.

Pros 
 

• Rapid weight loss can be very motivating, which can lead to a healthier lifestyle

Cons
 

• The diet is highly restrictive and eliminates most fruits and starchy vegetables

• For the diet to work, it completely relies on the body being in ketosis. So, there’s very little margin for error