The Average Diet
The word diet has two connotations. One is roughly what you eat. The other one is more limited in scope: what one eats in order to lose weight.
Let’s work on the first definition. The word diet is rather neutral about what you eat. You can eat 12 Dunkin’ Donuts a day and that will still be your diet. On the other hand, you can switch to healthy eating.
The average North American diet consists of the following:
60–70% of calories derived from refined carbohydrates such as white flours and sugars
20–25% of calories derived from saturated fats and trans fatty acids
10–15% of calories derived from protein
Research clearly shows that eating in this ratio leads to weight gain which can result in diseases such as heart disease and high cholesterol.
On the other hand, a healthy diet would look something like this:
Breakfast
2 slices of Whole Wheat bread; 1 ounce of Kashi cereal; 1 medium banana or orange;
1 cup of skim milk or yogurt
Lunch
1 cup of your favorite fruit juice; 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables; 1 cup of other vegetables, cooked
1 cup of brown rice; 2-3 ounces of lean meat or chicken
Dinner
1 cup vegetable juice; 1 cup brown rice; 1 medium apple; 2-3 ounces of your favorite fish
What’s the difference? A lot! The first one is unhealthy, while the other one is healthy. The healthy diet is what you would follow if you knew Harvard University’s Healthy Eating Pyramid. For the uninitiated, the pyramid has been the shape of choice when it comes to presenting healthy and nutritious food recommendations (Mediterranean Food Pyramid, the USDA Food Guide, etc.).
Just some features of the Harvard diet are:
The Healthy Eating Pyramid breaks carbs and fats into good and bad, rather than lumping them together. The new pyramid suggests other major changes as well, which includes:
Sharply restricting red meat, potatoes and refined grains, such as white bread
Limiting dairy products to one or two servings a day
Replacing unhealthy saturated fat with healthier unsaturated vegetable oils
Consuming large amounts of whole grains, fruits and vegetables
Taking a daily multivitamin
Drinking limited amounts of alcohol
Now let’s go to the other definition of diet, the one that connotes fad dieting for weight loss. There is a dizzying variety of fad diets to choose from nowadays. So many that one website has only to devote itself exclusively to just reviewing all the diets which come and go (http://www.diet-reviews-zone.com/).
The Atkins diet looks like this:
40-45% less carbohydrates
Two to three times more protein
Majority of fats are derived from healthy fats (omega-3 and monounsaturated)
Bottom line is no fad diets are healthy because they are not meant for healthy eating. They are skewed towards helping the individual lose weight.
One common criticism of the Atkins diet is that it gets its followers stressed. Dr. Natasha Turner, M.D. at TrueStarHealth.com offers two supplements which may keep you going and burn fat. She recommends taking Tyrosine and green tea which are excellent in taking off the stress caused by carbohydrates deprivation and in burning fat.
It is strongly suggested, though, that you stick as much as possible to following healthy eating guidelines. One flaw of the Atkins diet is the Yo-yo weight loss syndrome: lose 30 pounds and get them right back if you quit. The process goes on and on.
If you follow the healthy eating regimen, instead, it might take longer to lose weight, but you not only lose weight in the future. You also become healthier!
Edida Piatra is the webmaster of diet
diet http://www.fizzdiet.com