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Which diet should you follow?

Every diet has a book and a fan club. This page has the trials. What each one does, who it fits, and a free builder that turns your pick into actual meals.

Build my meal plan, freeFind my calorie target
1popular diet has a randomized trial on heart attacks. It won
~12months in, most named diets produce similar weight loss
0foods you must ban. Patterns beat prohibitions in the data

The honest comparison

Six ways people eat on purpose, each judged on its evidence and its survival rate in real life.

Mediterranean

The strongest evidence in nutrition: about 30 percent fewer heart attacks and strokes in a randomized trial. Bans nothing, so people stay on it.

Best for: heart, brain, and eating this way for life

The full guide
Intermittent fasting

Works about as well as calorie counting, no better and no worse. Its real gift is simplicity: fewer decisions, fewer snacks.

Best for: people who would rather skip breakfast than count anything

What the trials show
Keto and low carb

Fastest early weight loss and real short-term gains for blood sugar. Restrictive, so most people leave within a year.

Best for: a supervised push, especially with type 2 diabetes

The honest picture
Plant-based and vegetarian

Lower blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes risk across large studies. Needs attention to protein, B12 and iron to work well.

Best for: long-term health with the planet thrown in

How to do it right
Anti-inflammatory eating

Less a diet than a relabeling of the Mediterranean pattern. The food list is excellent; the marketing around it often is not.

Best for: understanding what the buzzword actually means

Separate food from hype
GLP-1 medicines plus food

The drugs suppress appetite; what you eat decides whether the lost weight is fat or muscle. Protein and strength work become essential.

Best for: anyone on or considering Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro

Eat right on GLP-1s

The plate that works inside any diet

Whichever label you choose, four moves carry most of the result.

Half the plate, plants

Vegetables and fruit at most meals. The single habit every healthy diet shares.

Protein every meal

It protects muscle and quiets hunger. How much you need, by body weight.

Mostly real food

Ultra-processed food drives overeating in controlled studies. The label tells you which is which.

Measure something

Weight weekly, or blood sugar if that is your battle. What gets measured improves.

Fresh vegetables and olive oil being prepared for a meal

Turn it into meals

Reading about diets burns no calories. These do the arithmetic for you.

Free diet plan builderCalorie calculatorBMI checkRead any food labelLose fat, keep muscle

When you want an expert on it

Diabetes, kidney disease, a stack of medicines, or years of diets that did not hold: that deserves a person, not a template. Our panel includes registered dietitians and doctors who answer in writing, starting from your real numbers. The Circle members ask one written question a month for $29.

Ask about your dietJoin The Circle

Common questions

What is the best diet to lose weight?
The one you can still follow in a year. In head-to-head trials, low carb, low fat, fasting and Mediterranean all produce similar weight loss at twelve months; the differences between people who stick with a diet and people who quit dwarf the differences between diets. So choose by fit: fasting if you like simple rules, Mediterranean if you refuse to give up food groups, low carb if you want fast early results. Our free diet plan builder starts from your calorie target and builds real meals around the style you pick.
Which diet is best for overall health, not just weight?
The Mediterranean pattern holds the strongest evidence: it is the only popular diet tested in a large randomized trial on heart attacks and strokes, and it won, with about 30 percent fewer events in high-risk adults. Plant-forward eating in general, with olive oil, beans, nuts, fish and vegetables doing the daily work, is where nearly all the outcome evidence points.
Do I need to cut carbs to lose weight?
No. Cutting carbs is one workable way to eat fewer calories, not a requirement. Trials comparing low carb with low fat at the same calories find the same fat loss. Cut carbs if bread and sugar are where your excess calories live; keep them if beans, fruit and whole grains are doing you good, because they are.
What is the best diet after 60?
Mediterranean, with the protein turned up. After 60 the body keeps muscle less easily, so aim for protein at every meal, roughly 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight a day, alongside the vegetables, beans, olive oil and fish. Weight loss diets should be gentler at this age: losing muscle costs more than the weight was worth.
Are detoxes and cleanses worth doing?
No. Your liver and kidneys run detox around the clock without a subscription. Juice cleanses lose water, not fat, and the weight returns within days. Every dollar aimed at a cleanse works harder as groceries: beans, frozen vegetables and olive oil.

Keep going, free

The Mediterranean diet, explainedFasting: what trials showProtein after 60Why diets fail, biologicallyThe nutrition library
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