18/01/2022
First things first:
THERE IS NO ONE BEST DIET. Period!!
When calories (& protein too!) are controlled, then the route you choose doesn't matter for weight loss. As long as you can adhere to it long-term, results will follow. Be Patient.
Many of these Named Diets have very strict guidelines and omit entire groups of foods. Sometimes special, hard to find ingredients are also needed to make meals. This can make the diet hard to follow, IT MAKES THE DIET STRESSFUL, it makes planning and being social harder.
Adherance suffers and so do your results.
Calories + Consistency is KING
If your goal is weight loss and you choose one of these routes also include tracking calories (and ideally eventually macros) then you can have greater control over your results.
Things to be aware of:
(this comes from personal experience and from the experience of others)
Weight loss comes fast at first. This is because most individuals don't know how much they were consuming on average before they started the diet. They go from eating out (sometimes a lot) and eating highly processed and palatable foods that are calorically dense but not nutritionally dense. Therefore the caloric deficit that is created is huge! Thus the weight loss is fast.
BUT the strict guidelines and the huge deficit make it hard to stick to. In fact, most I've talked with couldn't wait for the diet time frame to be up. When it was they went back to eating the foods they enjoyed before and gained the weight back, and in many cases gained more.
They didn't learn anything while on the diet. Tracking macros is a great tool to create educational awareness around food and how much you are consuming.
There is a need for a plan after the diet is over. Working with a coach is a great way to learn the phases of dieting. So that you achieve long-term results.
This post is for weight loss purposes, I fully understand that many of these diets can be used to help manage many different health issues.
