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Mayo Clinic Diet Guidelines
by Brent Sandmeyer
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Overview
Mayo Clinic Diet Guidelines
The Mayo Clinic's diet guidelines are simple and straightforward. Based on simple food pyramid, the guidelines teach you to make healthier food choices and consume fewer calories, allowing you to lose weight gradually and maintain a healthy weight for life.
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History
Fad diets promising quick weight loss have been around forever, but their focus on short-term results and dramatic diet changes give them a poor long-term success rate. The Mayo Clinic established official guidelines in 2005 to help people lose weight and maintain their weight loss, using scientific evidence and clinical experience.
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Fruits and Vegetables
Unlike the carbohydrate-heavy pyramid you may be familiar with, the Mayo Clinic diet puts fruits and vegetables solidly at the base of your diet. You can eat as much of them as you want. The Mayo Clinic recommends a daily minimum of three servings of fruit and four of vegetables.
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Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates make up the next level of the pyramid. Focus on complex carbohydrates and whole grains like oatmeal and whole wheat pasta, not simple carbs like white bread and sugar.
Whole grains, fruits and vegetables loaded with fiber fill you up without a lot of calories, and leave you feeling full longer than fats and simple carbohydrates. The Mayo Clinic recommends four to eight servings of healthy carbohydrates a day.
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Protein and Dairy
Whether you get your protein from meat or vegetarian sources, eat foods that are low in fat to limit calories. Choose dairy products in the same way, by letting low-fat and nonfat labels be your guide. The Mayo Clinic recommends three to seven servings from this category each day.
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Fats and Sweets
Many healthy foods like fish, nuts, and olive oil have "good" fats, unsaturated and packed with omega-3s. In order to limit fat calories and lower risk of heart disease, avoid saturated, cholesterol-laden fat in meats like bacon and marbled steak. Buy lean meats and low-fat dairy products. The Mayo Clinic recommends three to five servings of healthy fats a day.
The Mayo Clinic diet guidelines limit you to 75 calories a day from sugar and sweets, a big reduction for most Americans. For example, a typical sugar packet contains 15 calories, and a 16 oz. Coffee Frappuccino from Starbucks has 160 calories from sugar alone.
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Misconceptions
A fad diet that fraudulently called itself the Mayo Clinic Diet has been circulating for years. The false diet has you drinking gallons of grapefruit juice and eating bacon every morning, It has little merit as a long-term weight control strategy.
