Diet

Food Secrets of the World's Slimmest, Healthiest People

These slimming secrets from around the globe will help you drop pounds easily and for good

by Allie Flinn | 1 COMMENT

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Spoiler alert: Crash diets are so 2005. These days, it's all about making healthy-eating habits second nature. But what exactly are healthy habits? With the state of the Standard American Diet (SAD), we wanted to get a fresh perspective that doesn't involve juice cleanses or caveman cuisine.

So we went beyond the borders to see how people in other countries eat to lose weight and stay fit.

To help us sift through all the diet information out there, we enlisted the help of David Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and author of "Disease-Proof: The Remarkable Truth About What Makes Us Well" and Lisa Cimperman MS, RDN, LD, Clinical Dietitian at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

"The big problem with diets is how dogmatic people can be," Katz says. We don't know what the perfect diet is -- Paleo, vegan, Mediterranean -- but we do know the elements that make a healthy diet. Here, the best eating habits from around the world to help you get fit and stay slim in the new year.

SEE NEXT PAGE: Follow the Blue Zones Philosophy: If It Doesn't Occur in Nature, It Doesn't Belong in Your Belly

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