On the question of which diet is the most effective for losing weight, there are many opinions, proportional to the number of people in the world who have successfully lost weight, nutritionists and Internet websites.
This question is similar to which candy is the most delicious, which country is the best to live in or whose mother is the most beautiful. . . fulfill the minds of children of all ages; ).
No, this is not an indication that the answer does not exist. This is a warning that it goes beyond the specific name of one-single-best-diet-that-works-for-everyone.
Despite a rather vague beginning, I promise that below you will still find out which diet is the most effective for losing weight (we will provide a list of the top 5 most effective diets), why there are many of them (and not just one. ) and whatwhich all "best" have in common".
We'll also tell you how today's most popular diets work and why they're not always the most effective.
All diets are the most effective. . .
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of diets.
They are created by culture (Japan, Brazil), personality (Pierre Dukan), at the center of them are individual products (pumpkin, kefir, eggs, rice, oatmeal, cottage cheese) or groups of products (protein diet), on some of which youcan eat almost everything (intermittent fasting), on others - nothing (fasting).
And guess what?
The creators and supporters of each of these hundreds of diets, very different and very contradictory, claim that their diet is the most effective for losing weight.
And in response to the question posed in the title of this article, we can list all these diets and the results you will leave here, the name of a particular diet, the best and most effective, just depends on how convincingly we are described here. . .
At the same time, I am sure that some people are interested in hearing fairy tales about everything or, again, just being confident about something. By "effective diet, " each of us understands something very specific and specific, narrowing the list of hundreds of diets to a few units.
Diet classification
The entire variety of existing diets can be reduced to just a few groups based on their principle of action:
- remove fluid from the body with the help of drugs;
- remove fluid from the body by reducing the amount of carbohydrates in the diet;
- limiting calories by eating the same foods and completely eliminating certain food groups;
- calorie restriction by reducing the amount of food eaten;
- limit calories by consuming certain foods with a high satiety index;
- activation of fat burning by limiting the time of food consumption.
This is a very conditional classification, which nevertheless describes the principle of action of almost all diets. They differ in the level of potential health hazards and how easy or difficult it is to follow over time.
Many diets, positioned as the most effective, are very often based on a combination of all these factors, which allow you to lose weight as quickly as possible, but are not always effective in terms of maintaining health and long-term results.
The most effective diet for weight loss is. .
First we need to make sure that we speak the same language with each other.
An effective diet can be understood at least as follows:
- enabling dietlose weight fast;
- diet that helps you lose weightnot harmful to healthsothe weight does not return;
- the dietit just helps you lose weight, because many of them don't work at all for some people.
Which one did you come here looking for?
I predict that the answer is - everyone. And fast, and harmless, and with long-term results.
Then let's talk about everything in order.
How popular fake effective diets work
Different people have different meanings for the concept of "weight loss". For some it's a drop in scale reading, for others it's a drop in body fat percentage.
Do you feel the difference?
Weight loss during weight loss does not always occur due to fat: in many so-called effective diets for rapid weight loss, weight is lost due to the removal of fluid from the body.
Among those diets: detox diet, the use of laxatives for weight loss or diuretics (diuretics).
They are very effective at changing scale readings quickly, but they domanipulate not the fat content in the body, but the water content.
This may be acceptable for some people, but it is important to understand that all diets are like thatdoes not provide long-term results: Weight returns quickly as soon as the "diet" stops.
In addition, long-term adherence to such a diet is fraught witha very serious health risk.
All the most fake diets effective for rapid weight loss manipulate fluid content in the body, not fat. None of them provide long-term results and all are very dangerous to health.
About the popular "super effective" diet of fashionable stars
The most popular diets, named after the stars of show business, the Kremlin and Hollywood, have two common features:
- themlimit the number of product types very strictlynutrition in diet;
- they are characterizedvery low carb.
How it works? Very simple.
On the one hand, severely limiting food variety makes the task of counting calories easier; on the contrary, it reduces the possibility of overeating, because the diet becomes monotonous and bland.
Why do people quickly gain weight from carbohydrates, but quickly lose weight without them?
When we eat carbohydrates, the level of the hormone insulin increases in the blood, its function is to transport energy (carbohydrates) into the cells to be used as energy.
If energy needs are low, then carbohydrates are stored in short-term storage - glycogen in the liver and muscles. When these stores are full, excess carbohydrates are converted to fat and stored in long-term storage as fat, a location familiar to everyone.
Why is weight loss so fast when eliminating carbohydrates from the diet?
Each gram of glycogen binds several grams of fluid.
If we reduce the amount of carbohydrates in the diet, then quickly (in one day) the glycogen stores are emptied, the water used to store them is removed from the body and the body weight decreases.
Most of the popular "highly effective" diets that promise quick results are based on removing fluid from the body and strictly limiting allowed foods
The main principle of all correct effective diets
Remember the simple rule: all diets are basedreduce caloriesdiet, effective for weight loss.
Actually, there are many such diets. why? Because you can limit calories in many ways, from inducing vomiting, counting calories in meals accurately on a scale, or by strictly limiting carbohydrates and fats in the diet.
Effective from the point of view of the absence of harm to health and ease of compliance for a long time (ideally, throughout life), among which will be those that provide the nutrients necessary to maintain health (vitamins and minerals, proteins, fats, carbohydrates) and satisfy hunger.
All the most effective diets are based on calorie restriction. This is achieved in various ways with varying degrees of danger to health.
Why is calorie counting so important?
Scientists call excessive calorie content the main cause of obesity in our time. This is not at all a lack of physical activity, although modern people have indeed begun to move less.
See what the researchers of the scientific portal, whose mission is to study the effectiveness of various nutritional supplements and debunk popular myths in the topic of nutrition, say, based on scientific research:
". . .
The fact that excess calories in the diet of modern people is the main cause of obesity is proven by a large number of scientific studies.
A large number of scholarly articles have been written on this topic.
There are many examples on the Internet of losing weight on really unhealthy food in the form of fast food, pizza, potatoes, which prove thatall it takes to start losing weight is to eat less.
So, the main important things to learn:
For weight loss, only the number of calories is important, but for health, what we actually eat is important. All diets based on reducing calorie intake are useful for weight loss.
The most effective diet is the one that works for you and you can stick to for a long time.
There are many stories on the Internet about successful weight loss on completely different diets. Some of them lie, and some are truthful.
Some say that the most effective way to lose weight is intermittent fasting, others say the ketogenic diet, and others say the Dukan protein diet. And someone screams that nothing works.
Not all diets work for everyone, mainly because each person, due to their individual characteristics, needs a different amount of effort to adhere to them.
For those who love meat, it will be very difficult to "sit" only on vegetables, fruits and grains. But they will definitely like Pierre Dukan's protein diet or the Kremlin diet, which are basically the same thing.
Those who do not want to change anything in their food basket can appreciate the benefits of intermittent fasting, which does not require drastic changes in the diet, but only suggests eating at certain times.
Well, those who are not tied to this world with taste preferences can test for themselves the benefits of the ketogenic diet, which is rumored to be one of the healthiest.
At the same time, the ketogenic diet is not recommended for athletes and is quite difficult for physically active people to follow, as it almost completely eliminates carbohydrates, the main source of energy for our body.
So:
The best diet for you is the diet that works for you and that you can follow for a long time, ideally for the rest of your life.
It is impossible to follow a diet for a long time that leads to a state of chronic hunger and restlessness.
That is why often, after reaching the desired scale reading, there is a return to favorite eating habits and previous weight.
Fat cells are very resilient. They do not die immediately when losing weight, but only reduce their size. Start feeding them - and soon (and quite easily) they will be back to "normal".
To lose weight forever, you need to change your eating habits forever.and only a diet that you can follow for the rest of your life will help with this.
To lose weight permanently, you need to change your eating habits permanently.
The 5 most effective diets for weight loss
So, the most effective diet is the one that:
- aims to reduce the percentage of fat in the body, not water;
- restrict calories;
- allows you to stick to it for a long time;
- Provides all the nutrients the body needs to stay healthy.
For weight loss, calorie restriction is important, and for health, food composition is important.
The most effective diet for weight loss is a diet that limits the number of calories in your diet, leads to a decrease in the percentage of body fat, not water, and is not harmful to health.
Many popular diets are effective. The list of top 5 of them is given below.
Low carb diet
Most popular diets achieve calorie restriction by reducing carbohydrates. Of primary importance are sugar and fructose, the excessive consumption of which is recognized by scientists as the main cause of obesity.
Examples of low carb diets:
- ketogenic diet– a high-fat, low-protein and very low-carbohydrate diet;
- dIt's Atkins– high fat, high protein and very low carbohydrate diet;
- Paleo diet(hunter-gatherer diet or stone age diet) – high fat content, high protein content and low carbohydrate content;
- protein diet by Pierre Dukan– high protein diet (for meat lovers), low carb.
- intermittent fasting– together with limiting the amount of carbohydrates, limit the time when food intake is allowed (see below).
Why is a low-carb diet so effective for weight loss?
Fats and proteins are digested more slowly than carbohydrates, so they givegreater satietyfor a longer time.
Almost all such dietsIt is recommended to eat foods that are less "loaded" with calories, which contains more plant fiber and water: half a kilo of broccoli contains fewer calories than half a kilo of cereals, and even more so a cake ; ).
Carbohydrates trigger overeating and, as a rule, you always want to eat a lot of them (especially if they are sweet).
This is explained by the fact that their absorption is accompanied by certain hormonal changes in the body:
- they are involved in the synthesis of serotonin, the so-called "happy hormone" in the brain, which stimulates the desire to eat; This is probably why we love sweets so much and eat chocolate for depression.
- it affects the level of satiety and hunger hormones (leptin and ghrelin), which provide appetite control; with regular intake of carbohydrates (mainly sugar and fructose), immunity to this hormone can develop, resulting in uncontrolled appetite and overeating;
- after eating sweets, there is a sudden surge in the level of insulin in the blood, its job is to control blood sugar; after it completes its work, sugar drops sharply, which also causes hunger.
Scientific research confirms thatlow carb dietone of the most effective for weight loss, because it makes you want to eat less, eat fewer calories and be less likely to overeat.
The list of the 5 most effective diets includes a low-carb diet. All of them are effective for losing weight, because. . . Limit calories and avoid overeating
Intermittent fasting is one of the most effective diets
Intermittent fasting is called by many modern scientistsone of the most effective diets not only for weight loss, but also for health.
Unlike traditional fasting, this does not require complete abstinence from food, which is very difficult to tolerate and, as will be shown below, is far from the most effective weight loss strategy.
Intermittent fasting involves eating only at certain times during the day, within 8 hours. why? Because this allows you to maximize the fat burning process.
On this diet, there are no strict restrictions on the set of allowed foods: only common foods that are harmful to weight loss in the form of simple carbohydrates, especially sugar and fructose, are excluded. This is an element of a low-carb diet.
Everything is quite simple, and the health benefits are enormous.
Intermittent fasting is recognized by many scientists as one of the most effective diets for weight loss.
Some popular misconceptions about diet
Finally, let's look at some popular myths that are often placed in many diets as the key to effective weight loss.
Balanced and separate diets (mono-diet) differ in the degree of danger to health
Eating protein, fat and carbohydrates together (balanced diet) or separately (separate diet or mono-diet) does not at all increase the effectiveness of weight loss, although from a health point of view the benefits of a balanced approach are clear.
Let's reveal a secret: you can lose weight even from fast food, cakes, sweets. . . if you eat it carefully, observe the principle of calorie restriction.
The following statements are true for all mono diets:
"
For weight loss, it is not so important whether protein, fat and carbohydrates enter your body in a balanced or separate form: the quantity is important. However, from a health point of view, mono-diet is more dangerous to health.
The timing and frequency of eating is not important for weight loss
For weight loss, only the amount of calories consumed during the day is important.
Indeed,Eating small, frequent meals allows you to better control your appetiteand avoid overeating after fasting for hours. But it's important that you see the same basic principle at its root - it's just a way to limit and control calories.
If the calculated daily calorie content is 1500 kcal, then in terms of weight loss it does not really matter whether you eat it in one meal or several.
About fasting: how effective is fasting for weight loss?
One of the popular diets to lose weight is complete abstinence from food or fasting.
Radical rejection of food seems quite logical as a method of effectively solving the problem of excess weight.
But that is not true.
The problem is that fasting leads to a significant decrease ininternal metabolic rate.
According to scientific data, resting metabolism (the energy spent at rest just to maintain the body's internal functions) accounts for the largest share of calories burned each day: about 70%. Lowering this value significantly reduces the rate of weight loss.
The benefits of fasting for weight loss are a myth.
If the state of starvation continues for several days, the metabolic rate decreases very significantly.
Weight loss during fasting is mainly due to a decrease in the amount of fluid in the body. Also during prolonged fastinga lot of muscle mass is lost, when the body begins to break down muscle protein to provide energy for life's most important functions.
Mild calorie restriction, however, does not have such a dramatic effect.
Fasting is very ineffective for losing weight, because it reduces the rate of metabolism - the main consumer of calories in the body. Weight loss is mainly due to fluid excretion and loss of muscle mass.