The Clinic lists the key components of this diet as:

• Getting plenty of exercise and eating your meals with family and friends
• Eating a generous amount of fruits and vegetables
• Consuming healthy fats such as olive oil and canola oil
• Using herbs and spices instead of salt to flavor foods
• Eating small portions of nuts
• Drinking red wine, in moderation, for some
• Consuming very little red meat
• Eating fish or shellfish at least twice a week

With this in mind here is more information on a diet which gives you an opportunity to eat well and it tastes good and even includes a red wine if you feel so inclined.

The Mediterranean Diet
Lose weight and lower your blood pressure

The Mediterranean Diet is a low carbohydrate diet that is more effective for those who are dieting. The research project on dieters used 322 slightly obese Israelis. The results were written by a professor at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, Meir Stampler. She states that the most important result of the group project was that if you are trying to lose weight, start with a low carbohydrate or Mediterranean Diet for best results.

The research done on the 322 Israelis showed that a diet of fruits, vegetables, fish, yogurt, and olive oils was a safe way of losing weight. The project was a two year study done by Harvard and was published in The
New England Journal of Medicine.

Two points of view on the study that might detract from its impact are the fact that most of the 322 Israelis were men. Since men have more muscle and less fat, losing weight is easier for them then for women. Another opposition point is that regardless of what foods you consume, the bottom line is that in losing weight, what counts is the calories you consume.

The 322 Israelis work at a Dimona, Israel, research plant. They were assigned to either the low fat group or the low carbohydrate or Mediterranean Diet and given instructions on what to eat. For both groups,
women were told to limit their calories to 1500 a day and men to 1800 a day.

The low fat group had to limit their consumption of fat to 30% of their diet, and the low carbohydrate group to 35% of their diet. Those on the Mediterranean Diet had to count their carbohydrates separately from their
other calories. They were to limit their intake of carbohydrates to 20 grams a day. Their carbohydrate intake was increased to 120 grams per day.

All three groups lost weight, and there was little variation in the amount of weight lost. All three groups showed improvement in blood pressure and all three groups did better with their leptin hormone level. The low
carbohydrate diet proved more significant in lowering unhealthy fats that can lead to heart ailments.

All participants improved their waistlines and all tested with better blood pressure levels. Their was little difference in blood pressure levels in all three groups. Neither group decreased bad cholesterol levels more significantly than the others.

The Mediterranean Diet proved to be a more sustainable diet and improved blood pressure as significantly as a low fat diet. Since it was the easiest diet to stay with, it was recommended as the diet to choose for losing weight.

Valery Fortie is the National Awareness Coordinator of Mediterraneanbook.com

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