What Are the Best Diets for Healthy Living?

Diets are a dime a dozen these days. You can find them in bookstores, on the internet, and every downtown seems to have a diet “center,” but which are the cream of the crop, with proven success, and that provide a healthy balance of food that allows you to drop the pounds you need?

U.S. News can tell you, as they checked the nutritional completeness and safety of 20 different weight-loss systems and came up with a ranking that can help you make an informed decision.

The popular news magazine assembled a panel of 22 experts in both nutrition and diet and developed seven categories of criteria to judge their overall health quotient. While we will give you the “skinny” on them here, you might want to head over and check out the detailed results of all twenty.

Each diet was given a healthiness score, with the top score being a 5. Additional emphasis was given to the safety of the diet, because, let’s face it folks, a diet of lemon, water and honey may allow you to take off the pounds quickly, but you will suffer for it in the long run.

The panel gave high marks to the DASH Diet, TLC, Mediterranean, Mayo Clinic, Volumetrics and Weight Watchers. On the other end of the spectrum, with scores lower than a 3, were the Paleo Diet, Raw Food Diet and the Atkins Diet, all due to the fact that they are very restrictive in nature and make it difficult to get an adequate amount of all daily required nutrients.

"The ones that get high scores in safety and in nutritional value - they're very similar to each other," says Andrea Giancoli, a registered dietitian who serves on U.S. News's expert panel.

Below are the top 5 diets, as ranked by the panel of experts, along with brief information on each that was included in the report. For full details on all twenty, you can go here.

Topping the list in the #1 spot is the DASH Diet. Panelists applauded the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) plan for its nutritional completeness and safety-it racked up lots of 5s and 4s in both categories. Endorsed by the federal government's Department of Health and Human Services, the diet is packed with produce and light on saturated fat and salt.

In the #2 slot is the TLC Diet. Developed by the National Institutes of Health, the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) diet nearly matches the DASH Diet for healthiness, panelists agreed. Doling out all 5s and 4s, Experts approved of the fiber and calcium it generously provides as well as the saturated fat it doesn't.

Weighing in at #3 is the Mediterranean Diet. A Mediterranean buffet will showcase foods like whole-grain pita and hummus, salads, fresh fruits and veggies, salmon, and beneficial fats like olive oil. Dieters can drink to each others' health-a glass or two a day of red wine is encouraged. The diet meets the government's recommendations for healthy eating without compromising safety, panelists concluded.