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Safeway customers shop for peaches in Livermore, Calif. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Six diet-related lifestyle changes: Which works for you?

Millie Jefferson Apr 11, 2013
Safeway customers shop for peaches in Livermore, Calif. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Here in Southern California, it’s hard to throw a dart and not hit someone on some sort of special diet plan to change their lifestyle.

Restaurants have figured out that if they can offer diverse menus, with something to meet everyone’s needs, it’s better for their bottom line. Money aside, some of these diets lifestyle changes do you make you feel better than just eating without discretion.

Have you changed how you eat? If so, which lifestyle choice made/makes you feel your best? Vote in our poll below!

A quick look at some of the more common lifestyle and diet changes we’re seeing:

Atkins
Includes four “phases,” starting with very few carbs and eating progressively more until you get to your desired weight.

Gluten-Free
A diet that excludes foods containing gluten. Gluten is a protein complex found in wheat (including kamut and spelt), barley, rye and triticale.

Microbiotic/Raw Foods
On a raw foods diet, you only eat foods that haven’t been cooked, processed, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered, or exposed to pesticides or herbicides. It includes fresh fruits, berries, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and herbs in their whole, natural state. Some folks include seafood and raw animal products (like milk) from time to time.

Paleo
This diet is based on eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, or Stone Age.

South Beach
The South Beach Diet is relatively simple in principle. It replaces “bad carbs” and “bad fats” with “good carbs” and “good fats.” It is often confused with the Atkins Diet, another low-carb diet.

Vegetarian/Vegan
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat – red meat, poultry, seafood and the flesh of any other animal. Some vegetarians also limit or completely stop eating by-products of animal slaughter, such as animal-derived rennet and gelatin.
Dietary vegans refrain from consuming animal products, not only meat and fish but, in contrast to ovo-lacto vegetarians, also eggs, dairy products and other animal-derived substances.

Other (explain in the comments below)

Vote here:


Hear more on the gluten-free diet, and how it’s growing in popularity, here.

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