Diet

Help! There Are So Many Diets, Which Do I Pick?

First, What Is a Diet?

The most important thing is to take away the thought that a diet is a short-term strategy to lose weight or to ‘look good’. Drastic calorie restrictions or eliminating macronutrients as a whole (low fat diets, carbohydrate-free diets, etc.) can be very effective to lose weight quickly, but are not sustainable in a long-term way. When inevitably the diet returns closer to normal, the weight is gained back

Basic Diets

• Calorie Restriction: One of the simplest ways to improve your diet, is simply cutting down on the amount you eat. On a basic level, our weight change is the difference between the amount of energy we get from eating and the amount of energy we burn by exercising. Reducing your intake by 500 calories every day will cut down on your weight by 1 pound per week. While this may not sound like a drastic amount, keep in mind that if you keep this up for six months you’ll lose 26 pounds!

  • Exercise is important too, but to burn 500 calories by walking, you need to walk at a brisk pace for 90 minutes. It’s tough to find time to do that twice a week, let alone daily!

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• Mediterranean Diet: Often considered by doctors the ‘ideal’ diet. Less focused on ‘quantity’ of food and more focused on ‘quality’. The majority of this diet consists of vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds, whole grains, breads, fish/seafood, and extra virgin olive oil. Eating less of poultry, eggs, cheese, and yogurt. Avoiding sugar-sweetened beverages (soft drinks, iced tea), processed meat, refined grains (white bread, white rice), refined oils.

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• DASH Diet: Stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension; your doctor may discuss this to reduce your blood pressure and protect your heart. Very similar to the Mediterranean Diet, however the biggest differences are focusing on cutting down on dietary salt intake. Ideal is 2,300mg per day, which is a sharp reduction in the average American Diet

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• Paleo Diet: The basics of this are to avoid foods not available to our hunter/gatherer ancestors. Focusing your diet on meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds, health fats and oils makes this a popular diet, with avoidance of processed foods, sugars, soft drinks, grains, dairy, vegetable oils and margarine. Keep in mind that the evidence behind this diet is very controversial, and long-term studies have not been performed to show whether it is effective in reducing risks of things such as heart attacks, strokes, or cancer.

The Healthy Soldier Cookbook (PDF) and the Navy Bachelor Housing/Barracks Cookbook (PDF) are both designed for simple, cheap, and healthy meals which don't require large amounts of preparatory work or equipment beyond a stovetop or microwave.