The “Best” Diet
October 17, 2007
There are so many diet plans and diet books available today that it is almost impossible to determine which one is the “best” (Author’s Note: Your Naked Nutrition Guide is the best 
). Recently a manuscript was published in the Jounal of the American Dietetics Association that compared the “diet quality” of the country’s most popular weight loss programs/plans.
These are the diets that were compared:
- New Glucose Revolution
- Atkins Diet
- Weight Watchers
- South Beach Diet
- Zone Diet
- Ornish Diet
The quality of each of the diets was determined by the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI). This is a rating system that was developed from another diet quality system called the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). The HEI was developed to measure the adherence to the 1995 USDA Food Guide Pyramid. There was a paper published from a group of Nutrition Superstars from Harvard concluding that the AHEI was a 2x better predictor of heart disease than the original HEI.
So which diet won? The Ornish Diet.
Who lost? Atkins.
Does this mean that we all should go on the Ornish diet? No. While the Ornish diet may have recieved the highest AHEI score. In a 12 month weight loss study published a couple years ago the Ornish diet had the highest drop-out rate. It should also be noted that in the same study the Atkins diet was tied with the Ornish diet for the highest drop-out rate.
So Ornish has the highest diet quality score but it is the hardest to follow AND the Atkins diet has the lowest diet quality score and it is also the hardest to follow. Isn’t this confusing??
Here is the important information that you need to know.
1. The HEI was BASED on adherence to the 1995 USDA Food Guide Pyramid. The Atkins diet is essentially the complete opposite to the food pyramid so it isn’t a huge surprise that is received a poor “grade”. Always know your frame of reference.
2. If you follow the Ornish diet or Atkins diet you will get good results. IF you follow the plan. If you hate eating meat then the Atkins diet isn’t for you. If you love meat then the Ornish diet isn’t for you. You need to find a nutritional plan that fits your tastes, preferences, and lifestyle. That is the largest factor that will contribute to your success - Pick a plan that you can follow.
Now ask yourself - “What plan will I follow the best?”
My money is on Your Naked Nutrition Guide
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