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By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

In this final article about diets, we’ll be looking at 3 diets that aren’t as popular as some others, but still deserve some attention! Specifically, we’ll be looking at the paleo diet, the Dukan diet, and the Zone diet.

The Paleo Diet

The paleo diet is known for its restriction of certain foods such as grains, dairy, and processed foods. The goal is to eat whole, natural foods and emphasize the consumption of lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. There are a few variations to the paleo diet with some being stricter than others, but the main goal of eating natural and whole foods remains the same.

This diet does help with weight loss and has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, but the downside is that it eliminates whole grains, legumes, and dairy products which all offer great nutrition as well.

The Dukan Diet

The Dukan diet is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that is done in four phases, two of which are focused on weight loss, and the other two are focused on maintenance. In the two weight loss phases, you eat unlimited protein as well as mandatory oat bran. In the two maintenance phases, you begin to add non-starchy vegetables as well as some carbohydrates and fat. Some of the benefits of this diet are a higher metabolic rate and decreased hunger.

The Zone Diet

The zone diet is focused on giving your body a low-glycemic load, and it does so by limiting your daily carbohydrate intake to only 35-45% of your diet, while also eating 30% each of both protein and fat. Of the carbohydrates that you eat, you have to make sure that they have a low glycemic index. Reviews on whether this diet helps with weight loss are mixed, but it does reduce heart disease risk.

Hopefully, this series of articles gave you a little bit more insight into some of the different diet protocols that are out there.

When choosing a diet to start following, it’s important to know as much as you can about it and make sure that it is the right one for you! It might also be valuable to consult your doctor especially if you have a large amount of weight that you are planning to lose.

If you want to read up on more articles about dieting, check out the Fill Your Plate blog!