By Sanaz Majd, MD
Atkins, Keto, Weight Watchers, Flexitarian, Paleo — if you’re trying to lose weight, it is all enough to make your head spin. This year’s U.S. News & World Report ranked 41 of today’s most popular diets for weight loss and best overall diets:
https://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-weight-loss-diets
The results for the weight loss rankings are quite interesting and may actually surprise you.
Let’s review the pros and cons and weigh in on (no pun intended) 5 of the most popular diets of today.
Atkins: Ranked #17 out of 41 in best weight loss diets, #37 in best diets overall.
The Atkins diet initially gained headlines in the 1970s, accusing carbohydrates of being the culprit of obesity, rather than fat. Now, almost five decades after Atkins, the medical community has finally started to shift its goals away from recommending a “low fat” diet to now slashing the carb intake. We have now concluded that the causes of the ever-increasing obesity epidemic are carbohydrates like bread, rice, tortillas, potatoes, pasta, sweets, and sugary drinks.
NOT Fat.
Here’s how the Atkins diet works: high fat and higher protein consumption are the key, along with minimal carbohydrate (aka “glucose”) intake. If there is insufficient glucose circulating in the blood stream for fuel, your body doesn’t have a choice but to enter a metabolic state called “ketosis.” While in ketosis you will start burning your fat stores for energy next, hence weight loss. There are 4 phases:
Phase 1: requires you to restrict carbs to less than 20 grams a day from vegetable sources, for 2 weeks minimum. It requires protein at every meal, and no restrictions on fat intake.
Phase 2: allows you to gradually increase vegetable carbs and lasts until a 10-pound weight loss is achieved.
Phase 3: here you will continue to gradually add back about 10 grams of carbs a week, now including whole grains and fruits. But you must cut back on the carbs if your weight loss plateaus.
Phase 4: once goal weight is achieved, you maintain that balance of carbs, protein, and fats for life.
Pros:
• Foods are tasty, most especially for carnivores.
• Weight loss is one of the most rapid of all diets.
Cons:
• You can gain the weight back just as quickly.
• It’s extreme and therefore quite a challenge to keep up long term for many people.
• If you do choose to give it a shot, opt for healthier non-processed, fat-rich foods, such as avocados and nuts/seeds,and healthier protein choices, such as chicken, fish (not fried), turkey, etc.
• With such little fiber from limited fruits/veggies, there may likely be changes in your bowel — if you’re prone to constipation, beware.
Keto: Ranked #12 in best weight loss diets, #38 in best diets overall.
Now, fast forward almost 5 decades, the “ketogenic” diet is another rather extreme, but more straightforward, version of Atkins. Yet it is perhaps even more restrictive in its carbohydrate allowance, limiting it to anywhere from 20 to 60 grams of carbs a day depending on the version — this is often less than an apple a day. For being perhaps the diet with the most hype around it today, it did not rank too well.
Its pros and cons: similar to Atkins.
Weight Watchers: Ranked #1 in best weight loss diets, #4 in best diets overall.
Interestingly, Weight Watchers ranked pretty well in today’s diets. It incorporates a rather balanced diet, using the appropriate amount of each food group into the regimen. It does so by using a point system, where every edible item is assigned a point value depending on how healthy it is.
Pros:
• it’s not as restrictive with any particular food group-you can eat what you want, just in limited quantities.
• If you like the idea of being held accountable for your weight loss, the support and handholding is a big plus-they use in-person weigh-ins, phone calls, or online chats to achieve this.
Cons:
• It’s costly.
• It’s non-sustainable for many long-term. What happens when you don’t have weigh-in sessions and are on your own? Will you keep it up for life?
Flexitarian: Ranked #3 in best weight loss diets, #3 in best diets overall.
Why did it rank so high? The flexitarian diet is really a vegetarian diet that allows the flexibility of an occasional meat product.
Pros:
• It’s heart healthy.
• It can improve cholesterol levels.
Cons:
• It’s meat-lover misery: If you love meat and are not fond of veggies/fruits, it may not be sustainable long term.
• You will need to watch the carbs — often a challenge for some vegetarians, especially if you eat out.
• You’ll need to make extra effort in meal planning and learning how to eat as a vegetarian in order to obtain the proper nutrients.
Paleo: Ranked #31 in best weight loss diets, #33 in best diets overall.
The overall Paleo message is pretty simple — if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. And it does perhaps make sense; the advent of processed foods may have a lot to do with why we’ve become so obese in today’s day and age.
• Pros:
– It’s carnivore heaven if you enjoy eating meat.
• Cons:
• It’s expensive.
• It restricts entire food groups-grains and dairy are completely eliminated from this diet.
Sanaz Majd, MD is a board-certified Family Medicine physician who hosts a health YouTube channel, reviewing the latest medical topics, news, and headlines: www.youtube.com/MajdMD. You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram: @SMajdMD.
