The DASH diet, though created for the purpose of reversing hypertension, is also a satisfying, nutritious eating plan that has been proved to lead to lasting weight loss. Better yet, it’s a well-balanced, sustainable diet that can be followed for a lifetime in order to maintain a healthful weight after excess pounds have been shed.
When using the DASH diet for weight loss, the focus remains on whole, healthful foods; however, weight loss is accelerated when the bulk of each day’s intake is made up of high-fiber, low-calorie foods that are slow to digest. These foods have also been linked to a lower incidence of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and even osteoporosis.
With many weight-loss diets, particularly extreme diets that eliminate certain food groups altogether, the exact opposite is true; it’s impossible to stick with many of these plans for long, and as a result, any weight discarded has a tendency to creep back on once the diet comes to an end. Since foods recommended by the creators of the DASH diet are nutritious, delicious, and easy to obtain, many people find this plan to be one they can realistically follow—and enjoy—for the rest of their lives.
The DASH diet for weight loss includes so many fruits and vegetables that you may wonder how you’ll be able to eat the required servings during the course of a day. Dividing your daily intake into four to six mini meals instead of three large ones can make eating these high-volume foods easier. In addition, this approach will help you feel full all day, making unhealthful foods much less tempting.
Good preparation is essential to making any new endeavor successful. You need to know that you have the right tools and supplies—and that your goals are realistic—before you get started.
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The first thing you need to do is establish your health and fitness goals. Most people rely on the bathroom scale to tell them how much weight they need to lose, but that’s really not the most accurate measurement.
Start by determining your body mass index (BMI). This index approximates the percentage of your body weight that is fat. You can get your body fat calculated by professionals or purchase a body fat measurement kit; alternately, you can get a fairly accurate measurement of your BMI with a measuring tape and an online calculator.
Next, measure your weight. To do this, you’ll need to weigh yourself first thing in the morning, after urinating and before eating or drinking. Wear only your underwear or nothing at all. Record your weight in the appropriate blank on the BMI Assessment Form.
Next, you’ll need to gather some measurements to use in calculating your BMI.
For men, you’ll measure your neck and abdomen circumference. Be sure the measuring tape keeps in contact with your skin without pulling it too tightly. To measure your abdomen, wrap the measuring tape around your body at a point just below your belly button.
For women, you’ll measure the circumference of your neck, waist, and hips. Measure your waist at the slimmest point of your torso and measure your hips just below the hip bones; the measuring tape should cross the top portion of your buttocks. As you take these measurements, you can write them down on the BMI Assessment Form.
Once you have your measurements, you can calculate your BMI using one of the many free calculators that are available online, http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ or http://www.linear-software.com/online.html.
If you are using the calculator in the link, take the following steps to calculate your BMI are:
Once you have determined your body fat percentage using an online calculator, enter the value on the “Body Fat %” line of the BMI Assessment Form.
With an understanding of your body fat percentage, you can begin understanding your current state of health and have a point of comparison after you have started following the DASH diet. While you can weigh yourself along the way and celebrate pounds lost, recalculating your BMI is often a more efficient way to track your progress.
If you follow both the DASH diet and the DASH to Fitness workout plan, you’ll likely be gaining lean muscle mass as you lose fat. In this situation, a scale can’t tell the difference between muscle weight and fat weight; lean muscle weighs more than fat but is more compact than fat tissue. As a result, the scale may say you’ve gained weight, but you are likely to see an improvement in your BMI. To see an example of this improvement in action, you can return to the BMI calculator you used for your initial calculation and reduce your measurements by several inches (just one or two inches at the neck, and a few to several inches at the waist, abdomen, or hips). This will show what your BMI would be given those hypothetical measurements.
Once you have an understanding of your BMI, it is important to calculate the number of calories that your body requires to maintain your current weight. This calculation will help you understand the number of calories you should consume in order to lose weight at a safe and comfortable pace.
To perform this calculation, first you need to calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR). The BMR formula takes your height, weight, age, and gender into account in its calculation. This method is likely to be more accurate than calculating your calorie needs based solely on body weight. Since leaner bodies burn more calories than less lean ones, this method will be accurate unless you are very muscular or very obese. If you’re very fit and muscular, you may need to add more calories, and if you’re very overweight you may need to deduct them. Trial and error will help you make these types of adjustments as you progress in your diet.
The following formula will calculate your BMR:
Calculate your BMR and record it in on the BMI Assessment Form.
To determine your daily calorie requirements (DCR) you’ll need to factor in your activity level. To do this, we use what is known as the Harris Benedict Equation.
To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:
Calculate your DCR and record it on the BMI Assessment Form.
Once you know the number of calories needed to maintain your weight, you can easily calculate the number of calories you need to eat in order to gain or lose weight.
One pound equals 3,500 calories, so to lose one pound a week you would deduct 500 calories from your total DCR (not your BMR). To lose two pounds a week, you would need to deduct 1,000 calories per day.
For people whose DCR is low, trying to lose weight solely by cutting calories may be impractical and unsustainable. It’s healthful to combine increased activity and decreased calorie intake, but this is especially true for those who already have a low calorie requirement.
You can start out using the caloric requirements for your present activity level, minus 500–1,000 calories per day. In two weeks, if you’re staying on schedule with your DASH to Fitness plan, recalculate your DCR using the appropriate new activity level. This will ensure that you’re getting enough nutrition yet still staying on track for your weight loss.
The DASH Diet Health Plan does not recommend cutting calories below 1,500 per day for women and 1,800 per day for men.
One of the easiest ways to identify a fad diet that likely won’t work long-term is to listen for the words “no exercise required.” Exercise, even in small amounts, is essential for everyone—not just for weight loss but also for good physical and mental health. One of the most amazing things about the human body is its ability to regain flexibility and stamina, even in people who have been living sedentary lives for many years or even decades.
While there are diets that call for intense exercise on a regular basis, the DASH diet takes a less stringent approach. Only about 15 percent of Americans exercise daily. With this figure in mind, the diet’s developers recommend that participants who are out of shape simply begin walking a few times per week, for a few minutes at a time. Eventually, even the least fit people can work their way up to high levels of activity as their bodies become accustomed to regular exercise.
Not only is walking considered to be one of the safest low-impact exercises, it is also economical. All you need are comfortable clothes, supportive walking shoes, and perhaps your favorite music or audiobook to keep you company. Best of all, you can walk just about anywhere—your neighborhood, a local mall, a park, or even inside an airport while awaiting a flight.
If you are in poor physical condition, be sure to talk with your doctor about starting a fitness routine, even if it is just walking. Once your condition improves and the weight starts to come off, you’ll likely discover yourself feeling increasingly motivated, plus you’ll be able to walk faster. The faster you’re able to walk, the more calories you’ll burn, the better you’ll condition your cardiovascular system, and the healthier you will feel and look.
There is another reason to stick with regular exercise while following the DASH diet, whether your aim is weight loss, reversing hypertension, or simply overall health: The combination of moderate exercise and sustainable diet has been shown to improve mental activity by an average of 30 percent as compared with overweight adults who did not modify their diets or engage in exercise. Researchers believe that these simple lifestyle modifications have significant implications for potentially slowing or even reversing cognitive defects that can occur with age, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The four-month study, which was published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, focused on 124 overweight adults who were divided into three groups. The first group followed the DASH diet and participated in thirty minutes of aerobic exercise three times each week. The second group followed the DASH diet but did not exercise, and the third group did not exercise or diet.
At the end of the study, not only did mental activity improve for the first group, their lifestyle changes showed improved cardiovascular fitness, reduced systolic blood pressure by an average of sixteen points, reduced diastolic blood pressure by an average of ten points, and an average weight loss of nineteen pounds.
Exercising with a friend can help you better adhere to your routine. Find a friend or family member who would like to make exercise a regular part of his or her life, then set a schedule and stick to it. This strategy works well because exercise partners are often reluctant to let one another down; plus socializing while working out is a fun way to connect and improve social bonds.