The diet is derived from the various eating patterns found around the Med, and concentrates on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, minimal animal protein, and fat from healthy oils.
With a high proportion of centenarians in its population, the Okinawan diet gets lots of interest. It focuses on low meat consumption and an emphasis on soy foods like tofu.
It’s essentially a Mediterranean diet with certain Asian influences.
Billed as cardio-protective, the Ornish diet eschews animal proteins and oil, yielding a plan that’s every low (less than 10%) in fat.
Food is limited to 500 to 600 calories a day on two days of the week. The other five days you’ll eat a normal diet with a focus on high-protein, high-fiber foods.
It lengthens the overnight fasting period to 16 hours, making for an easier path to intermittent fasting.
The diet concentrates on locally grown organic food that eschews any kind of processing or added sugar.
The diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole, unprocessed foods.
It’s okay to become enthusiastic about your new diet plan, but if you become too entrenched, it might be hard to change if your diet stops working for you.
It’s a way to cut calories, and its proponents cite cellular repair, improved insulin sensitivity and other benefits. But the science is weak.