Simple Nutrition Insights

Navigate 2025's Top Diets for Optimal Health

• Leonila • Season 2 • Episode 7

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This episode provides an in-depth look at the top diets for 2025 as evaluated by nutrition experts. We explore key dietary approaches like the Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, and flexitarian diet, emphasizing their health benefits and sustainability for individual lifestyles.

• Discussion on the importance of the Mediterranean diet
• Overview of the DASH diet and its heart health benefits
• Analysis of the flexitarian diet’s flexible approach to eating
• Introduction to the MIND diet for cognitive health
• Other notable diets including the Mayo Clinic Diet
• The critical role of personalized nutrition in choosing a diet
• Encouragement to seek professional guidance for sustainable eating habits

The Best 2025 Diets Report 

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, welcome everybody to the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast. I am your host, leonina Campos, registered Dietitian. I hope you're doing well. Episode is airing on the last day of January and I remember doing an episode the first week of January. We talked about resolutions and, statistically, how over 80% of resolutions usually fail by February. So let me know, I hope you're doing well. I hope that you were able to listen to that episode, because I talked about creating a plan that is going to help you with your goals and being able to achieve them, and how to create smart goals instead of doing a resolution right and focusing on long-term changes. So if you haven't had a chance to do that, take a listen.

Speaker 1:

Episode was aired the first week of January, so not too long ago, but in today's episode I want to talk about an article that the US News and World Report did in terms of diets. So today we're going to explore the top rank diets, and I'm using air quotes of 2025, again as evaluated by US News and World Report. What I really like about this report is that they assembled a panel of experts, including doctors, dietitians like myself, to assess various diets based on factors like health benefits, eat of adherence and long-term sustainability. Now, this is amazing, right, because a lot of the times, dieticians don't get the opportunity to get involved in something like this right, and we should, because we are the food and nutrition experts. Right, we have the knowledge, we have the schooling, we have the certification. Right, we are bound by a board. Right, we are board certified. So why not bring in the experts in food and nutrition right to talk about these things? I'm super thankful and I'm so happy that the US News and World Report invited dietitians, right, so let's talk about the diet. In their 2025 ranking, the Mediterranean ash and flexitarian diets have emerged as the top choices.

Speaker 1:

Let's start with the Mediterranean diet right Now. I want you to understand that, for dietitians and doctors and healthcare providers, diet is not a bad word. For us, diet just means the way of eating, right. Essentially, that's what it is. So when we say the word diet, it doesn't mean like dieting right, like it's something that we're restricting, right. It just means our food choices, the way that we eat, something that we're restricting right. It just means our food choices, the way that we eat, and so in this case, right, the Mediterranean diet is like the Mediterranean nutrition way of eating. Right. So this way of eating consists of, or consistently has been held at top spot for several years. This way of eating emphasizes plant-based foods, whole grains, legumes of eating emphasizes plant-based foods, whole grains, legumes, nuts and healthy fats like olive oil. It also includes moderate consumption of fish and poultry, while limiting red meat and sweets.

Speaker 1:

The studies have shown that following the Mediterranean diet can lead to weight loss, improved heart health and reduce risk of chronic diseases. Oftentimes, the Mediterranean way of eating right or diet is recommended for someone that has heart issues, right, or they want to improve their heart health again, because it limits red meat. It limits high saturated fats. Right, and focuses more on plant-based foods, whole grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil, which are heart. So you might see that, but in general, right encompasses all your five food groups, which is a great way of eating regardless.

Speaker 1:

The next one is the DASH diet right, which stands for Diet. Years ago, where I created different presentations right Spanish and English to talk about the DASH way of eating right, specifically for the population that was struggling with high blood pressure. Now high blood pressure is pretty prevalent right and it's so important to get a hold of our blood pressure and make sure that we make changes to bring it down because it is uncontrolled. High blood pressure is one of the leading causes of chronic kidney disease and renal failure. Right, that leads to dialysis. So it's important to make sure that we are doing anything and everything that we can to manage our blood pressure, and there is essentially a way of eating right to specifically focus on that, and that's the DASH diet. It was originally developed to combat high blood pressure, but the DASH diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products. It also includes lean meats, fish and nuts, while limiting sodium, sugary beverages and red meats.

Speaker 1:

Research indicates that the DASH diet not only helps lower blood pressure, but also reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke, which are, in a way, hand-in-hand right. So if we have uncontrolled blood pressure, that can lead to a heart attack or a stroke, absolutely right. Being able to lower our blood pressure can have a significant impact in so many ways of our life. So the main focus here right is again adding more of these wholesome foods, limiting the red meats, limiting the sugary beverages and sodium, because sodium has been shown that it directly affects our blood pressure, right, if we eat something that is salty, and you can even test that. When you eat something that is really salty, you feel swollen, right. Usually you feel it on your fingers, your feet, because there's too much salt, right, too much sodium circulating in the blood and the kidneys have to do that extra work to retain some water, right, to be able to dilute that. But in that process of retaining more fluids, that increases your blood pressure, right. So it's essentially a feedback mechanism that your body is doing to be able to manage things and balance things out. So, yeah, the increasing amount of salt that we consume is going to help us with better blood pressure management.

Speaker 1:

The next one is the flexitarian diet, which is a blend of flexible and vegetarian. It promotes a primarily plant-based diet while following or while allowing for occasional meat and animal product consumption. This approach offers flexibility and encourages individuals to incorporate more plant-based meals into their routine without completely eliminating meat. Benefits of the flexitarian diet include weight loss, improved metabolic health and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. If this is something that interests you adding more plant sources or more plant-based meals that is wonderful, right. It doesn't mean that you're going to be vegetarian or vegan. It just means that you're trying to add more plant-based meals, to add more fiber, right, and to lower your saturated fat and your cholesterol, which are all heart healthy as well as can help with our metabolic health, our liver health. So why not? Right, if this is something that you're like, that's actually something that interests me adding. Doing meatless Mondays right, it's a great idea. You can incorporate more plant-based meals during your week, right, it's a great idea. You can incorporate more plan-based meals during your week, right, and it's all going to be beneficial. And it's also not a way to be like oh, this is so restrictive, right, I can never have X, y, z, because that's when the problem comes in. Right, when we feel so restrictive in doing something that we're not able to do it for a long period of time, it's not sustainable. It's important to note that, while these diets are highly ranked, the best diet for you depends on your personal health goals, lifestyle and preferences. Consuming. Consulting with a healthcare provider or a dietitian like myself can help you determine what is more sustainable for you, right, and what's going to work best for you.

Speaker 1:

Now, these are not all the diets that were discussed in the report. There are, and I am going to link the article so that way you can take a look, read it and you can let me know what you think. But they also talked about let me see, I have their report here in front of me. They talked about the MIND diet, which stands for Mediterranean Dash Intervention, for their neurodegenerative delay, and it's more focused on improving brain health, which is great. I think this is amazing because we are seeing a rapid decrease in mental health, in our brain function. For many reasons, it could be a combination of not giving our bodies, our brains, those nutrients that it needs our plant sources, healthy fats, omega-3s, and so, you know, if this is something that you're interested, right, and it's something that. Or if you have a family member, right, that is like you know. Let's focus on um, on optimizing our brain health, right? This is a possible option, especially as, even for ourselves, right? Right, maybe we're in our 20s, 30s and we want to optimize our mental health or our brain health. This is something that we can absolutely consider.

Speaker 1:

Then we also have the Mayo Clinic Diet, which is an evidence-based behavioral science. It's a 12-week program. Then we have the therapeutic lifestyle changes. That focuses on eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, bread, cereals and lean meats. We have something around menopause diet, right? Hormones it's more around hormones and managing the symptoms and weight gain. We have an anti-inflammatory diet, volumetric diet so many of them, but the top ones that I reviewed, right, those have been the top ones for a while, and this, I guess, rating was based on the sustainability of it, right? What else here? The health benefits and the risk, and then, as I mentioned, the proven sustainability. So take a look at the article, right, and each diet has the description for it and exactly what it is.

Speaker 1:

But again, it really comes down to number one what our goal is, right, what we want to accomplish. Why do we want to follow these? Or why do we want to make these changes Instead of like, oh well, my friend followed that or my neighbor followed that? Right, because we are not all the same. We are unique, as we should be, and so, for that same reason, we should be creating our own way of eating that is going to work best for us. So if you're needing more support, right? If you've struggled with trying to figure out a healthy way of eating that is sustainable and that is providing the nutrients that your body needs, that your brain needs to function properly, there's so many dietitians out there that can support you. You can always reach out to me. You can text me or call me at 559-512-0404. Send me a text, right? Or a message using that feature that Apple Podcasts has in the description.

Speaker 1:

Don't follow something that you think is going to give you rapid results, because you will probably get those rapid results. But the problem with most crazy diets is that they're not sustainable. Right, because they're so restrictive. And what is creating even more problems? Because now we're feeling guilty because we're eating the foods that we enjoy and we're putting foods into, like, good and bad categories, and oftentimes the food that we put in bad categories are the food that we enjoy and when we do eat them now we feel so guilty. We shouldn't have to feel that way, right, we should follow something that makes sense for us, that is going to work for us and that we see ourselves doing for the rest of our lives. So I hope this makes sense for you. So please, please, please.

Speaker 1:

Don't follow something that is crazy just because you want rapid results, because just as soon as you finish that right, as soon as you stop doing that not so healthy thing, everything that the way that you were might come back right, because we don't have a plan to continue to follow right. It's not sustainable. So don't waste your time, don't waste your money. You know, reach out to the professionals. We are here to help. And that is it, my friend. I just wanted to do a quick one today and talk about again this report. And so take care, stay safe and stay strong. I will see you and talk to you in another episode. Bye-bye for now.