Best Diets for 2018

U.S. News & World Report, which seems to be the expert on everything from college to refrigerators, weighed in on the best overall diets for the new year.

Here are your Top 5:

The Dash Diet — emphasizes the importance of eating more fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy, while limiting foods that are high in saturated fat and salt.
The Mediterranean Diet — emphasizes the importance of eating more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and limiting bad fats and salt … oh and yes, olive oil is good and a little wine is ok.
The Flexitarian Diet — emphasizes the importance of eating more fruits, veggies and whole grains (are you starting to see a pattern here?) Basically, this diet says be a vegetarian most of the time, but if you are craving red meat, go for it.
The Weight Watchers Diet — emphasizes healthy choices and beyond calorie counting, ranks food on nutritional value. You may have guessed by now, fruits, veggies, whole grains and healthy oils rank very high on the list of good choices.
The MIND Diet — emphasizes foods that will have a positive effect on your mental and cognitive health as you age. It takes the Dash and Mediterranean Diets and further teases out the top 10 most brain healthy foods … ready? Hold on to your seats: green leafy veggies, all other veggies, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil and wine.

My take on the whole thing?

Diet is the wrong word and should be replaced with lifestyle. Diet conjures up images of short term weight loss and sacrifice. These “diets” are about nutrition and prevention. The weight loss will follow.
There is nothing earth shattering here and they are all essentially saying the same thing: more vegetables, more fruit, more whole grain, focus on good oils and eat less saturated fat in the form of red meat, sweets, butter, etc.
Fad diets don’t work. What researchers are finding is exactly what people inherently knew for a long time. Good, healthy, natural foods make you feel better, help you maintain an optimal weight for your body type and keep you alive longer.
Inspire this type of nutrition in your children at an early age, and just maybe we can start to fix the obesity problem from the bottom up, and reverse the trend that is setting our kids up to be the first generation who doesn’t outlive their parents.
Eat when you are hungry. Just because avocado is a better choice than butter, doesn’t mean you should devour chips and guac. If your kids tell you they are full, believe them.

For the complete U.S. News & World Report list, click here.

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