2012′s Holiday Pound Busters: Diets That Will Ensure a Fitter You

With countless celebrations and the most irresistible foods served, packing on the pounds is inevitable in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. In this span of time, most people drop their diets and indulge in the festive spreads, assuring themselves they’ll lose the extra pounds right after. However, this is easier said than done.

Holiday nutrition can be one of the most challenging feats to accomplish. If you can maintain it, then your weight will be in control and you deserve congratulations for your iron-clad willpower; but if you give in to all the delicious holiday treats, then you can be sure that getting back on any diet will be even harder, if not impossible.

Whether or not you’re able to keep away from the holiday temptations, be confident that the coming year will present a lot of opportunities to make amends for stuffing your tummy with, well… stuffing, among other things.

As early as now, there are a number of diets recognized to be some of the best for 2012. Here are some examples of diets you can consider as part of your New Year’s resolutions:

The DASH Diet

Originally created to lower blood pressure and the risk of heart disease, the 28-day DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was also found to be an effective weight-loss regimen. This is attributed to the low-salt, whole food meal plans it requires people to follow. For example, instead of stuffing yourself with salty foods, you may have a sandwich with soup and veggies on the side, or a large salad with chicken, followed by a frozen yogurt sundae.

This diet is best for people with time to cook since it involves a number of recipes that will need kitchen work.

The Paleo Diet

Also called the Caveman Diet, The Paleolithic Diet is a modern dietary regimen that consists of foods presumed to be the main sources of nutrition during the Paleolithic era – or in short, caveman food. The general approach to this diet is to avoid processed foods, cereal grains, legumes, dairy products, refined sugars, and starchy veggies. Although not originally designed to be a weight-loss plan, the Paleo diet proves effective because it eliminates excess carbohydrates from your diet.

Meal plans include fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, vegetables, fruits, roots, and nuts. What’s more, this diet is naturally casein and gluten-free, making it a great choice for people with milk or wheat-based food allergies.

These are just two examples of the coming year’s most recommended diets. So, lose that holiday gut and say hello to 2012 with a well-balanced dietary strategy for a healthier you!

Know any more diets we should watch out for this coming 2012? If you do, feel free to leave a comment – we’d love to hear from you!