It's that time of year again! The New Year delivers a new and refreshed drive to better our health and wellness. With this rejuvenated desire to improve our health comes a whole new lineup of goals, diets, and lifestyle alterations. Let's look into the top diets coming at us in 2022!
Finding the proper type of diet to develop into your new and improved lifestyle can be a hard thing to do, especially with all the options out there. You can get lost in all the reviews and testimonials of people who swear by one type of diet or the other, but the truth is everyone reacts differently, and you can't guarantee what results you're going to get. With that said, let's look at our Top Diets For 2022.
Our top-ranked diet recommendation may come with some of the most impressive health benefits backed by years of research and peer-reviewed studies. The Mediterranean region of the world is home to some of the oldest living and healthiest humans on the planet, leading to speculation of what these people have in common that provides them with such vigor and health later in life. Beyond the mutual climate and culture they share, the Mediterranean diet is a prominent pillar of life that they all have in common. As if that wasn't enough to consider adopting this diet to your lifestyle, the Mediterranean diet was the top-ranked regimen in the U.S. News and World Report's annual list of best overall diets for 2022.
What is the Mediterranean Diet? The primary group of foods that developed over centuries in the countries of the Mediterranean region including, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, and Italy. This diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, legumes, olive oil, herbs, and spices with a low to moderate amount of eggs, fish, and poultry. While fish and poultry are more common than red meat in this diet, it's primarily focused around minimally processed plant-based foods and healthy fats.
Now we move from a time-tested classic to an emerging enigma in the "Flexitarian Diet." So what exactly does it mean to be a flexitarian? It all starts with dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner, who designed the diet to help people reap the benefits of a vegetarian diet while moderately enjoying animal products. Hence the name combination of flexible and vegetarian.
The Flexitarian diet has no clear-cut rules or recommended calories, making it more of a lifestyle than a diet. A lifestyle based on the following principles; eat mostly fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Focus on protein from plants instead of animals. Be flexible and incorporate meat with other animal products from time to time. Eat the least processed, most natural form of foods available. Limit the amount of added sugar and sweets you eat. These are simple principles that should allow anyone to adjust their lifestyle to reap the benefits of a vegetarian diet without completely altering their life.
Welcome the New Year with a new perspective and an improved lifestyle involving better choices in the foods you eat and how you prepare them. Don't think of these changes as a strict new rule set that you have to follow, but rather an improvement of your health and wellness through a new outlook on life. Preparing yourself by adopting this mindset will set you up for success. Whether you're a fan of the time-tested classic in the Mediterranean Diet, or your laidback attitude is attracted to the Flexitarian Lifestyle, one thing is for sure, your body will thank you!
