Usually, we think of the main purpose of a diet, we think of losing weight. After all, what is the point of watching what you eat if you are not planning on losing weight? Well, there are actually diets out there that do not focus on weight loss at all.
Sure, you may lose weight while being on the diet (although, that will depend on how overweight you are when you start the diet), but that is not the main focus of the diet. A good example of this is the MIND diet; this famous diet is dedicated to helping people stave off Alzheimer’s disease and is not meant to help you lose weight.
Key Features
- A mixture of two other diets, the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet.
- The diet focuses on decreasing your chance of Alzheimer’s disease.
- The diet works by forcing you to strictly control portions and focus on low cholesterol foods.
Pros
The MIND diet is a hybrid of two other famous diets, the DASH diet, and the Mediterranean diet (MIND stands for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay). Because of this, it has a lot of the advantages of those diets.
For example, there is a heavy focus on cuisine from the Mediterranean area like red wine, fish, olives, leafy greens, etc. So, the food you can eat on the diet is pretty delicious.
The diet claims to help promote brain health and reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Now, normally such grandiose claims would usually turn out to be false, but there does seem to be some actual scientific backing behind the diet.
A 2015 study showed that people who strictly followed the MIND diet had a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25681666). Anyone who has ever had a relative who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease can tell you just how devastating it can be; so, the fact that the diet can reduce a person’s risk of developing the disease is huge.
Cons
As was mentioned earlier, this diet is not meant to help people reduce their weight levels. So, if you are looking for a diet that will help you lose weight and burn fat, then this is not the diet for you. Another issue is that the diet is incredibly strict. Because there is a focus on foods with low cholesterol, you are going to have to be prepared to read every label before eating something.
