Analysis of a diet plan: benefits, risks, and personal suitability

Health and Nutrition -- Diet Plan Proposal

The objective of this project is to outline a dietary plan that will enable the subject to reduce excess body weight, lower body fat percentage, and maintain that diet for the long-term. In principle, that requires establishing fundamental principles of healthful nutrition that are effective from the weight-loss perspective but not so drastic or difficult to maintain that the diet will only be capable of being sustained for the short-term, resulting in the typical yo-yo weight loss and gain cycle that is characteristic of fad diets such as the Atkins Plan or South Beach Diet. Ideally, this diet plan will provide more of a lifelong approach to nutrition and ideal weight maintenance than a "diet" in the sense that it is intended only as a temporary solution to solve an acute problem of necessary weight reduction.

Principles

This nutritional plan will be based on the several fundamental principles. First, there is no point to any diet that is incapable of being sustained over a lifetime because losing weight and regaining it repeatedly is actually worse than remaining overweight for a longer period of time before finally losing the excess body weight. That is mainly because whenever a person loses a large amount of weight, a substantial portion of that weight is not fat but also muscle and other tissues. However, whenever one regains excess weight, especially in a short amount of time, virtually all of that weight is fat. As a result, a person who repeatedly loses weight and then regains it again actually increases his or her body fat percentage during every phases of that cycle.

Second, a diet that requires severe calorie restriction or the complete (or nearly complete) elimination of entire classes of foods (such as carbohydrates) cannot possibly be sustained over a lifetime. Third, a serious effort to reduce excess body weight and to maintain a healthy body weight cannot be implemented on a periodic basis or over a finite time period. Therefore, the only value of a diet is in its capacity to be maintained over the course of a lifetime; otherwise there is no point to it.

Nutritional Plan

To lose excess body weight and maintain a healthy weight and body composition without excess fat over the long-term, the nutrition plan must eliminate fats of all kinds as much as possible as well as simple carbohydrates. Both fats and simple carbohydrates are readily converted to body fat if calorie consumption exceeds calorie expenditure. With respect to body weight issues, all sources of fat (i.e. both "good" fats and "bad" or saturated fats) are equally problematic. Meanwhile, complex carbohydrates need not be avoided or substantially restricted. Whereas simple carbohydrates (such as sugars, white flour, regular pasta, white rice, white potatoes, and some fruits) are easily converted into blood sugar and then stored as body fat, complex carbohydrates (such as dark wheat, semolina pasta, sweet potatoes, and brown rice) are broken down much more slowly and stored in the muscles and the liver as energy in the form of glycogen.