What is the best diet?

If you are like most people, you have asked this question at least once in your life. “What is the best diet?” Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Omnivore, Atkins, South-beach, “X”- hour diet, the Blood-type diet (maybe this one was created by Dracula?), the Cabbage-soup diet, etc. There are so many different types of diets out there. So, the short answer to the question is...yes.

Josh Hills, one of my favorite authors, once said that all diets that restrict calories will cause weight loss. Any diet with food quality as the focus will favor the loss of body fat. That is the basic “eat less than you burn” rule. Remember, all diets fall into one or more categories; calorie restricted, quality focused (you can only eat “x’ types of foods), or timing based. I am not going to talk about timing today since it is not as pertinent for the average person.

Calories consumed equals scale weight. The quality of food consumed equals body fat percentage. It is that simple to follow. If you want to reduce or increase your overall weight, then eat less or more food. If you want to look good naked, eat better quality food.

The type of diet is not the problem, there are many. The problem for most people is adherence. Maintaining a super strict diet for life will be difficult to near impossible. The human body cannot maintain super-hard workouts every day, and that includes dieting. Your diet needs to be a progressive program with a definitive objective and pre-planned periods of rest. Your nutrition plan should include recovery or “free meals” that help promote adherence. That said, the free meal does not have to be a Big Mac and large fries, but so what if it is. The purpose is to give you some mental relief. This is a good  idea for the average person.

The best diet plan is one that fits seamlessly into your daily routine. It is minimally evasive and relatively easy to follow. The ultimate focus is to become consistent. Consistency gets us to our nutrition goals.