What is the second best diet? That’s a great question. How many diets are there? Who knows. I’m sure there are thousands of diets. If you go to Amazon and search for diet books you get over 50,000 results. Wow – that’s a lot of diets. How do you know which is the second best diet? Or how do you at least narrow down the 50,000 diet books to a manageable number? Well US News & World Report has come out with their list of the top diets for 2012. Over the next month I’m going to take a look at the diets that made their list (around 25 diets) so go ahead and bookmark this site and come back for a look at a new diet everyday for the next month.
According to US News & World Report the second best overall diet is the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes or TLC diet. Here is some of what they had to say:
Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes, or TLC, is a very solid diet plan created by the National Institutes of Health. It has no major weaknesses, and it’s particularly good at promoting cardiovascular health. One expert described it as a “very healthful, complete, safe diet.” But it requires a “do-it-yourself” approach, in contrast to the hand-holding provided by some commercial diets.
The Theory
Created by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program, the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Diet (TLC) is endorsed by the American Heart Association as a heart-healthy regimen that can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The key is cutting back sharply on fat, particularly saturated fat. Saturated fat (think fatty meat, whole-milk dairy, and fried foods) bumps up bad cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. That, along with strictly limiting daily dietary cholesterol intake and getting more fiber, can help people manage high cholesterol, often without medication.
How does the TLC Diet work?
Start by choosing your target calorie level. If your only concern is lowering LDL, the goal is 2,500 per day for men and 1,800 for women. Need to shed pounds, too? Shoot for 1,600 (men) or 1,200 (women). Then cut saturated fat to less than 7 percent of daily calories, which means eating less high-fat dairy, such as butter, and ditching fatty meats like salami. And consume no more than 200 milligrams of dietary cholesterol a day—the amount in about 2 ounces of cheese. If after six weeks your LDL cholesterol hasn’t dropped by about 8 to 10 percent, add in 2 grams of plant stanols or sterols and 10 to 25 grams of soluble fiber each day. (Soluble fiber and plant stanols and sterols help block the absorption of cholesterol from the digestive tract, which helps lower LDL. Stanols and sterols are found in vegetable oils and certain types of margarine, and are available as supplements, too.) On TLC, you’ll be eating lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or nonfat dairy products, fish, and skin-off poultry. Exactly how you meet these guidelines is up to you, though sample meal plans are available
For your own copy of the TLC Diet you can download it by clicking on – TLC Diet.
Related articles
- What Is The Best Diet? (fitnessweightlosscenter.com)
- Best Diets list: Top 2 are unknown to most (abclocal.go.com)
