Five diets to recommend to your patients

Primary care physicians are on the front lines of the battle against obesity. Here are five diets to recommend to your patients to help them make meaningful lifestyle changes.

1. DASH diet 

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet, was created to fight high blood pressure. But experts recommend it because DASH is nutritionally complete, can prevent or control diabetes, and encourages heart health. The DASH diet emphasizes portion size, food variety, and nutrients.

2. Mayo Clinic diet

This diet stresses lifestyle changes to help patients reach and maintain a healthy 
diet for life. It uses the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid as a guide to smart eating and daily exercise. The diet is broken into two parts, a two-week “Lose it!” phase devoted to jump starting weight loss and a “Live it!” phase based on steady weight loss and healthy living.

3. Mediterranean diet

This diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables, healthy oils, and fish. It limits intake of
 red meat and butter. Research shows the Mediterranean diet can reduce heart disease risk.


4. Weight Watchers


A well-known, subscription based diet plan, weight watchers uses a point system to tell participants what and how much they can eat each day. The plan emphasizes consumption of fruits and vegetables.

5. TLC diet

The Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes diet
 was created by the National Institutes 
of Health, and was designed to promote cardiovascular health. It limits calories 
to promote healthy weight and reduce cholesterol levels, and limits consumption of saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. 

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