JUDO competitions are held according to weight classes so it's common for judo athletes to try to cut as much weight as possible to qualify for the lowest weight class they can be in.
When I was a competitor, I used to cut weight by severely restricting food. This wasn't the healthiest way to lose weight and neither was it sustainable.
However, a lot of athletes in sports involving weight classes (boxers, wrestlers, etc) do this because it allows you to cut weight fast. The problem is that once the competition is over, you gain back the weight very quickly.
It's classic yo-yo dieting. There must be a better way. Well, there are plenty of diet plans out there. Perhaps you've tried a few of the famous ones like the Atkins Diet, the Paleo Diet or the Keto Diet.
All these are apparently very effective for losing weight but they rank poorly in the US News & World Report annual ranking of diets.
The best diet, according to that ranking's 2021 list is the Mediterranean Diet. This is the fourth year in a row that diet has placed first.
"We've convened a panel of 24 experts who live and breathe diet, weight loss and obesity," said Angela Haupt, managing editor of health at U.S. News & World Report.
"They score each diet on a number of different measures: how easy it is to follow, how likely it is to lead to long-term weight loss, how healthful and safe it is, and how effective it is at preventing or managing chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease."
Most diets involve restricting or eliminating certain food types. Some cut out carbohydrates. Some cut out fats. Some cut out meat. Usually, diets involve excluding some groups of food. The Mediterranean diet, however, doesn't cut out any food groups.
THE BEST DIETS
What the Mediterranean diet does is emphasise certain types of food, in particular whole grains, olive oil, fruits and vegetables.
Meat, in reduced quantities, and seafood is allowed. This flexible approach makes the meals more varied and thus more sustainable.
Tied in second place for overall best diets are the DASH Diet and the Flexitarian Diet. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet was created by the American National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute as a way to reduce blood pressure.
It focuses on whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean protein and low-fat dairy. Not surprisingly, it calls for low sodium and eliminates food that are high in fat and sugar.
As its name implies, the Flexitarian Diet allows for some flexibility when it comes to eating meat.
While it encourages people to eat meat alternatives like tofu, eggs and lentils, it doesn't require the total abandonment of meat.
This diet was promoted by registered dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner whose best-selling book was The Flexitarian Diet, published in 2009.
It doesn't advocate excluding food groups; rather, it suggests that you add on five key food groups into your diet, namely meat alternatives; fruits and vegetables; whole grains, dairy; and sugar and spices.
Although the Mediterranean, DASH and Flexitarian Diets are somewhat different, they do have a lot of common denominators.
All call for avoiding processed foods and all favour a plant-based diet (though they do not necessarily exclude meat). There's also an emphasis on whole grains, nuts and seeds.
THE WORST DIETS
The diets that ranked the worst are some of the more well-known and popular diets.
The famous Paleo Diet, for example, comes in at number 31 out of 39. This diet works on the simple premise that if a particular type of food is something that cavemen didn't eat, you should avoid it.
The thinking is that this would then eliminate modern diseases like heart disease and diabetes.
It's an incredibly restrictive diet. No refined sugar because cavemen had no means to refine sugar. No dairy because cavemen didn't domesticate animals. No grains even because cavemen didn't farm.
Basically, what you can eat boils down to meat, seafood and fruits and vegetables (which cavemen could gather, even though they didn't plant them).
You might have also heard of the Atkins Diet, which was created by a cardiologist named Robert Aktins (who wrote about it in Dr Atkins' Diet Revolution).
This is a low-carb diet that strictly limits consumption of bread and other forms of carbohydrates. You can eat a lot of animal fats though, which raises health concerns. This diet ranked number 33.
The worst ranking of the popular diets out there is the Keto Diet, which is kind of in vogue right now.
Like the Atkins diet, it's a low-carbohydrate diet. It was introduced by an Italian professor of surgery, Gianfranco Cappello of Sapienza University in Rome.
In his 2012 study, about 19,000 dieters received a high-fat liquid diet which resulted in an average weight loss of more than 20 pounds (about 9kg).
The Keto Diet is in many ways similar to the Atkins Diet but with the latter, you gradually increase your carbohydrate intake whereas in the former, it remains very low. It came in at number 37.
Today, there's a modified Keto Diet, also known as Keto 2.0, which is less restrictive than the original version.
For example, modified keto dieters consume about 82 per cent of their daily calories from fat versus 90 per cent in the traditional one; 12 per cent protein instead of six per cent; and six per cent carbohydrates instead of 4 per cent.
Nevertheless, even this less restrictive version ranked poorly, coming in at number 35.
Now, let's get back to the Mediterranean Diet. Not only was it ranked to be the best diet overall, it also got first place for best diabetes diet, best heart-healthy diet and crucially, easiest diet to follow.
If a diet is too restrictive and hard to sustain, it won't work no matter how effective it is.
The Ornish Diet for example, is jointly-ranked No. 1 (with the Mediterranean Diet) for best heart-healthy diet in terms of its effectiveness but researchers consider it to be too hard to follow because of how strict it is.
THE GREEN VERSION
As good as the Mediterranean Diet may be, there's an even better version dubbed the Green Mediterranean Diet.
A new study published in the journal Heart reveals that eating a greener version of the diet could be even healthier and lead to more weight loss.
The study involved 294 sedentary and moderately obese people with an average age of 51, who were randomly assigned to three dietary groups: The classic Mediterranean Diet, the Green Mediterranean Diet and a generic healthy-eating diet.
After six months, those following the classic Mediterranean lost 11.9 pounds while those on the Green Mediterranean Diet lost 13.6 pounds.
Those in the generic healthy diet lost only 3.3 pounds. Those on the Green diet also saw more significant drops in their LDL (or the so-called bad cholesterol).
Those who were following the classic Mediterranean Diet ate meals low in simple carbohydrates and rich in vegetables, with poultry and fish replacing red meat. It included an ounce of walnuts a day.
The Green Mediterranean dieters ate higher quantities of plant-based food and avoided meat, drank green tea and ate walnuts.
They also took frozen cubes of Wolffia globose, a flowering plant that's packed with protein, and a protein shake made of duckweed, an aquatic plant.
The advantage of the Green version is that plant-based proteins are naturally low in saturated fats and cholesterol while high in fibre and antioxidants.
In contrast, animal protein is generally higher in fat and cholesterol and have almost no fibre or antioxidants.
It must be pointed out though that while the Green version of the diet offers optimal health benefits, it's harder to follow than the classic version.
For that reason alone, it might be better to go for the original Mediterranean Diet, unless you're very disciplined about what you eat.
Oon Yeoh is a consultant with experiences in print, online and mobile media. Reach him at oonyeoh@gmail.com.
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