When we talk about diets, we refer to the different types of diet focused on a goal. There are those who seek to lose weight, others to gain muscle mass or maintain it. There are those that a professional recommends, adapting to your characteristics, and those that the majority follow in a pre-established way. Even, supplementation or drugs that accelerate any of the processes are also introduced.
There are thousands of diets, the vast majority very extreme and some balanced. Today we will tell you about the different types that we can find depending on the characteristics of each one (without going into the vegan or vegetarian field).
Also, this is just a classification. To find out what type of food you should eat, go to a dietitian-nutritionist who will assess your case and personalize a plan. It is essential that you know your objective and the weaknesses that you must improve.
Types of diets depending on the objective
When you start a diet, you have a goal, if not, why, right? Well, there is a brief classification of diets depending on the objective that we have imposed on ourselves. It should be said that diets must be controlled and imposed by professional dietitians and nutritionists, and we also have to remember that diets where you go hungry, or where you only eat one type of food, or diets with substitute products, are not healthy or recommended.
Maintenance
It is a type of diet whose objective is to maintain weight, once we have reached optimal physical condition. It should not cost us any suffering to perform it and it can be maintained for the rest of our lives.
The remarkable thing about this type of diet is that it eliminates the rebound effect, since we will have learned to improve eating habits and we will not return to the lifestyle we had before. In addition, since it is less strict, we will not suffer any type of burden, nor will we consider it an obligation.
Although it is true, this type of diet will not work if we have not lost the necessary weight before. And, although it seems the simplest, if you are not a disciplined person or with a healthy lifestyle, it will be highly difficult for you to manage to maintain it over time.
Slim down
It is the most sought after type of diet, without a doubt. Your goal is set to lose a number of pounds, if possible, of body fat. If we achieve it in a healthy and progressive way, the change will be controlled and can be maintained over time. Likewise, it can be graduated depending on the response we get.
The first step change our lifestyle (if we have extra kilos) is this type of food. These are diets that can be very expensive until we manage to turn our new eating habits into a regular routine. Unfortunately, they are the type of diet that is abandoned the most because it is difficult to follow for several months.
Gain muscle mass
To gain weight in a healthy way, we must focus on gaining muscle mass to avoid storing fat. There will be a caloric surplus and priority will be given to protein consumption to generate more muscle. Most think that, in the muscle bulk phase, they can stuff themselves with junk food. That will only cause weight gain, due to excessive fat gain.
This diet must go in unison with a training table, otherwise we will only gain weight, but that extra will not be muscles, but accumulated fat that we have not been able to eliminate or transform. An unequivocal sign that either we are eating more calories than necessary, or we are not exercising enough.
Diets depending on nutrients
These types of diets are usually much more common than we often think. It is a series of choices that we can make based on our objective. In this type of diet it is also recommended to be guided and advised by a nutrition professional, since otherwise we can unconsciously create some dangerous imbalances for our health.
low in carbohydrates
The most common is the ketogenic diet. It consists of restricting the consumption of carbohydrates, but without altering the intake of proteins or fats. It is usually used as an effective method to lose weight, since any consumption of flour, sugar, pasta, etc. is partially eliminated. It may have the advantage that many people find it easier to eliminate a nutritional group rather than count calories.
And that is the problem, we cannot completely eradicate carbohydrates because we will be suffering from a nutritional deficit, something quite harmful to health. In addition, suppressing carbohydrates is usually the most complicated part of any diet, since they are the foods that we are most used to in our day to day.
low in calories
They are also a fairly common type of diet. The amount of food is reduced, regardless of nutrients, in order to achieve caloric restriction. Something that in theory seems easy and safe, but in reality it is quite difficult, and we usually rush to achieve our goal and that is why we end up reducing calories and the amounts of food so much.
Despite being able to choose the foods that we are going to eliminate from the diet, imbalance can occur if you do not have professional supervision. Miracle diets usually belong to this type, so we must take special care with our health, especially in the case of adolescents who idealize the bodies and physical appearance of Instagram influencers.
low fat
Restricting the amount of fat we eat is easier than doing it with carbohydrates. You can eliminate calories in a fairly simple way, in addition to managing to control cholesterol and triglycerides. However, they are inconspicuous and not recommended diets (if we completely eliminate the consumption of healthy fats).
Some examples of eliminating bad fat for healthy fat is change a ribeye for blue fish, change sunflower oil for extra virgin olive oil, reduce fried foods or eliminate them and cook better by steaming, add nuts to our daily diet, restrict butter or change it to margarine, increase the amount of fruits, vegetables, legumes , seeds and others, reduce sugars as much as possible, eliminate sausages, reduce dairy products and eggs, etc.