The Best and Worst Diets for 2025
Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.
Posted January 16, 2025 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
What qualifies as a good diet ? It should include nutritious foods that provide all the necessary nutrients for normal health. It should do no harm to your general health. It must be a diet that one can tolerate and integrate into one’s lifestyle for the long term. The best diet should not produce unpleasant feelings or leave one feeling hungry all the time. Popular diets tend to be gimmicks and are a challenge to stick to. Many people stop their chosen diet, not because of their risk factors (which most are rarely aware of), but because they simply get tired of the effort to maintain the dietary regimen, or because they feel hungry all the time. If all one can think about is food, it’s hard to focus on the other priorities in life.
Some diets are both unwise and difficult to follow.
Healthy Balanced Diets
For maintenance of good health, the DASH diet; the Antioxidant diet, which is essentially the Anti-inflammatory diet; and the more familiar Mediterranean diet are all excellent choices. These diets emphasize nutrient-dense whole foods including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean proteins, while limiting the consumption of refined sugars, processed foods, and saturated fats: 40% to 50% of calories from healthy carbs, 30% from fat, 20% to 30% from protein.
However, for good health combined with weight loss (which is necessary, given that 75 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese), current evidence overwhelmingly indicates that caloric restriction is the only valid, scientifically proven dietary intervention that can reduce body weight, slow the aging process, and improve mental health without forcing you to give up either proteins, fats, or carbohydrates. However, caloric restriction is not easy! Most people give up on this diet because they feel hungry all day long. (For more, see my book Your Brain on Food .)
The answer lies in knowing when to eat.
The body is greatly influenced by our daily biorhythms. One recent study examined the effects of eating the majority of each day’s calories earlier or later in the day. Overweight women were divided into a breakfast group or a dinner group for 12 weeks. The breakfast group showed greater weight loss and waist circumference reduction. Fasting glucose and insulin decreased significantly in the breakfast group. Average triglyceride levels decreased by 33.6 percent in the breakfast group and increased significantly in the dinner group. Most importantly, the women who ate a big breakfast reported feeling satisfied by their food and being less hungry for the rest of the day! This is a diet that people can stick with for the long term.
Overall, be an omnivore with a balance of all nutrients like the Mediterranean Diet. However, given the role of circadian rhythms in how we metabolize calories, the current data suggest that we eat a big breakfast and a small dinner. I suggest the new mantra: Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.
Wenk GL (2019) Your Brain on Food , 3rd Ed. (Oxford University Press)
Oppert JM et al., (2021) A ketogenic low-carbohydrate high-fat diet increases LDL cholesterol in healthy, young, normal-weight women: a randomized controlled feeding trial. Nutrients, Vol 13, p 814. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13030814
Buren J (2021) A ketogenic low-carbohydrate high-fat diet increases LDL cholesterol in healthy, young, normal-weight women: a randomized controlled feeding trial. Nutrients, Vol 13, p 814. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13030814
Lowe DA et al (2020) Effects of time-restricted eating on weight loss and other metabolic parameters in women and men with overweight and obesity. The TREAT Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. 180:1491-1499. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.4153
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Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology, neuroscience, molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at the Ohio State University.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.