The Mayo Clinic Plan

The publication comes from the Mayo Clinic Health Information group and is available at newstands, in a glossy magazine-like format.

Overview

The plan has been formulated by esteemed doctors of preventive medicine, family medicine, sports medicine and experts in dietetics to create a whole body approach to healthy eating and weight loss. The plan is broken into an assessment and three steps that encompass: Eating, Fitness and Weight Management.

Assessment

The strategy starts with a system for assessing your health and helping you make goals. The section includes several quizzes to help you figure out where your health is and what your goals should be.

Fitness

With a moderate approach that will work for most lifestyles, the Mayo Clinic plan's step one offers exercise and fitness tips. It includes schedules for gradually ramping your exercise for a variety of activities.

Healthy Eating

The second step starts with a primer on healthy eating and teaches you to design a diet that works for your lifestyle and improves your nutrition with foods that are optimal for health and achieving an ideal weight.

Achieving a Healthy Weight

Using the goals you set in your assessment, the fitness skills you learned in step one and the healthy food decisions you made in step two, step three of the Mayo Clinic Plan helps you put it all together to lose or manage your weight. It includes help with changing your behavior and lifestyle to support healthy living, tips on eating out, sample menus and useful tips. It emphasizes portion control and delicious whole and low fat foods along with a healthy and active lifestyle.

Mayo Clinic Plan Summary

No, there is no magic bullet here. But, the medical experts who devised this "Official" diet can help you change your lifestyle for improved health, fitness and to acheive your ideal weight.