Have you heard of the Nutritarian Diet? It happens to be ranked 15th in the best diets overall in 2018. It was ranked high for a number of reasons including the fact that there is no calorie counting on this diet, and it takes a very health-focused approach. Let’s take a closer look at what this diet is all about and how it may be able to benefit your health.
What is the Nutritarian Diet?
The Nutritarian Diet is a diet aimed at helping you lose weight while keeping it off, and also helping you reach peak health. The diet focuses on whole-plant as well as nutrient-dense foods, and it’s much different from other diets since there is no calorie counting required.
While following the Nutritarian Diet, you will be limiting your animal-based product consumption, and focusing more on plant-based foods. You will be consuming a ton of superfoods and making salad bowls and sticking to more natural foods and less processed options. This diet was not only designed to help you lose weight, but also to promote overall health and to help ward off chronic disease.
The diet was developed by Joel Fuhrman, the author of Eat to Live, and physician and he developed the diet with his knowledge on which foods, as well as, diets are the most effective when it comes to supporting overall wellness as well as fighting off disease, and helping you live longer and healthier.
The Four Principles of the Nutritarian Diet
There are four main principles in the Nutritarian Diet. These include nutrient density, nutrient adequacy, toxin avoidance, and hormonal favorability. Nutrient density is looking at foods and determining how nutrient-packed they are. Things like dark leafy greens are ranked very high on the nutrient density list while foods and beverages high in sugar rank very low on this scoring system. Next, nutrient adequacy refers to getting the vitamins, and minerals as well as fatty acids you need. Toxin avoidance is just what it sounds like. It is avoiding toxins from things like chemicals, hormones, pesticides, and steroids you would commonly find in processed foods. Lastly, hormone favorability involves consuming carbohydrates that will help balance your blood sugar levels instead of causing a blood sugar spike. It means limiting your animal protein sources. It also means consuming enough foods high in vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fiber to support your overall health.
How to Get Started?
There are a couple of ways you can get started with the Nutritarian Diet. You can choose to use this diet a way to kick-start your weight loss efforts, or you can use this diet as a long-term healthy eating plan. There are programs you can download including the “10 in 20” detox program. If you choose to use this as a long-term diet plan to sustain healthy eating, you need to know that it actually has its own food pyramid. You will find that this diet focuses more on consuming adequate amounts of vegetables, less animal products, less grains, no dairy, and no sugar. You will also be consuming more beans, nuts, seeds, and avocados than most other healthy eating plans. You will be focusing on superfoods to help combat chronic disease with things like beans, and other anti-inflammatory foods like berries.
Snacking is also discouraged on this diet. You will be eating three balanced meals per day, and drinking water throughout the day is important.
The diet is fairly easy to get started with because there are so many recipes provided online, and if you purchase the program, you will get to know step-by-step about how to get started. It depends on your commitment level. However, once you eliminate the toxic foods from your diet, and realize how much better your body feels, and start to see results, you will be more motivated to keep going!
If you are looking for a new healthy eating plan to start weight loss and support overall long-term health, you may want to consider trying this diet. It received a decent ranking from the best diets of 2018 ranking system, and has many positive aspects! Start consuming foods that support weight loss and longevity now, to protect your long-term health.
