Shawdesh Desk: Healthy diet trends have been around for a while, and 2020 is no different. The new year is set to be about staying in shape, while eating right to fuel the body’s ability to do more. Here are the five types of diets to watch out for in 2020, as per nutritionist and diabetic educator, Harshita Dilawri, Know Your Nutrients, and nutritionist Ambika Tyagi, Healthy Souls.

Plant-Based Diet
This diet is sustainable and with many people converting to vegetarianism or preferring to eat veggies over meat, this will be a big part of the year 2020. A plant-based diet, as the term suggests, is mainly composed of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, soy and whole grains. People who follow the plant-based diet majorly consume these food groups to fulfill their need for essential vitamins, fibre and minerals.

Mediterranean Diet

Another diet that is common in countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea, such as Greece, Italy and Spain, is the Mediterranean Diet. The main components of a Mediterranean diet are daily consumption of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats, weekly intake of fish, poultry, beans and eggs, moderate portions of dairy products and limited intake of red meat. In this diet, people are allowed to have wine, tea and coffee as per the suggested quantity.

The Blood Type Diet

The blood type diet is all about eating according to your blood type which helps in reducing the fat from your body and also keep away the food allergies. The blood type diet has been popular since the past two decades.

Raw Food Diet
In this diet, one eats uncooked, unprocessed and mostly organic food. Nutritionists say heating food destroys its nutrients and natural enzymes. The raw food diet believes that cooking makes food toxic. It also helps in losing a significant amount of weight as what we eat is low in calories, fat and sodium, while being high in fibre. Also, one can get nutritional perks such as vitamins and minerals.

Intermittent Fasting

Periodic fasting periods have been popular religious tools for centuries. Now, a growing number of non-religious dieters are trying their hand at fasting for health and weight loss. There are dozens of different ways of doing intermittent fasting, but all involve splitting the day/week/month into distinct eating and fasting periods. During the fasting periods, the dieter eats nothing (or very little, depending on the version). These are the three most popular intermittent fasting types right now:

*The 16/8 method (most popular)

Dieters restrict their daily eating period to a strict eight-hour block (noon-8pm), and fast the other 16 hours (8pm till noon the following day). Mostly, this means skipping breakfast and cutting off food strictly post-dinner.

*Eat-Stop-Eat

Dieters eat normally except for 1-2 days each week during which they eat nothing.

*The 5:2 diet

Dieters eat normally five days of the week and severely restrict calories on the remaining two days (eating just 500 calories or so on each of the fasting days).

By reducing your calorie intake, all of these methods should lead to weight loss as long as you don’t compensate by eating more during the eating periods. Ultimately, all fasting diets aim to cause weight loss through caloric restriction.

Source: The Indian Express