The cost of different diets

The Atkins diet will have you saying bye-bye to bread, and we’re not just talking about carbs. Finder.com analyzed seven popular diets to find that Atkins is the most expensive way to lose weight, requiring an estimated annual cost of $4,319.66 for an adult.

A normal diet recommended by the USDA costs the average adult $3,685.50 annually, putting the annual cost of Atkins at 17% more than your standard diet. Must be all those bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips.

The popular low-glycemic South Beach Diet comes in at second most costly. At an average cost of $4,074.54 a year, it’s 11% higher than the USDA’s recommended diet.

Trailing well behind both Atkins and South Beach, a vegan diet takes third place as most expensive. But it’s some 15% cheaper than the USDA recommended diet, with its diet of plant-based meals costing roughly $3,144.27 a year.

Of the diets we analyzed, a ketogenic — or keto — diet is the cheapest. At $2,444.22 a year, it’s roughly 43% less than what the Atkins diet will cost you and 34% less than the USDA recommended diet. Switching from the USDA diet to the keto diet could mean depositing an extra $1,241.28 into your savings this year.

To compute annual costs for each diet, we analyzed ingredients from weekly recipes for each diet and translated them to result in expenses for a year. We accounted for the fact that select ingredients are likely to last more than a week.

What’s the best way to lose weight?

Far and away, the best way to shed those pounds is with the South Beach Diet, which offers an annual average weight loss of 16.0 pounds, according to our analysis. South Beach is followed by a vegan diet at 10.8 pounds and Atkins at 10.4 pounds.

We weren’t able to find a research study published for Whole 30; therefore, we excluded it from our analysis. Weight loss for Paleo was reported over a three-week study, while the Mediterranean diet was reported over a two-year study. Because weight loss for keto was provided in intervals, we used the lower end reported — or 8.8 pounds. We converted weight loss reported in kilograms to pounds for our analysis.

Looking to lose weight and save?

The keto diet appears to be cheapest at a cost of $2,444.22 a year, while the South Beach Diet may help you lose the most weight at up to 16 pounds a year. But the Mediterranean diet actually offers you the best bang for your buck.

Those following a Mediterranean diet tend to lose around 9.7 pounds a year at a cost of $2,459.48, which breaks down to about $253.55 for every pound lost. The Mediterranean diet narrowly beats the South Beach Diet, the second-most expensive way to eat but at an average $254.66 per pound of weight loss. In third place is the Keto diet at a cost of $277.75 per pound.

We weren’t able to find a research study published for Whole 30; therefore, we excluded it from our analysis of annual weight loss and cost of diet per pound.

Keeping the weight off

Losing the weight is one thing, but keeping it off is another. Staying on top of your diet and regular exercise is your window to success. If your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, compare your gym options to find the best match for your goals and budget in 2019.

• Methodology

  To calculate the annual costs of each diet, we collected data on more than 35 recipes combined from
  Freckled Foodie (Whole 30), KitchMe (Paleo), the South Beach Diet’s official site (South Beach), Legion Athletics (Mediterranean) and GoodtoKnow Recipes (Atkins).Costs reflect meals for one person. We analyzed meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner only, translating weekly costs to monthly by using a metric of five weeks for each month. We then multiplied our monthly costs by 12 to result in an annual cost. We sourced ingredient expenses from midprice online grocer Fairway Market on four days:

  • Whole 30, Paleo — December 11, 2018
  • South Beach, Mediterranean — December 12, 2018
  • Atkins, vegan — December 20, 2018
  • Keto — December 19, 2018.

  We sourced the price of a USDA recommended diet for an individual from the USDA’s Cost of Food site. The nutritional bases of the Food Plans are 1997–2005 Dietary Reference Intakes, 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and 2005 MyPyramid food intake recommendations. We used the cost of a USDA meal plan for a family of four ($245.70) to calculate the price for one person ($61.43), translating the cost to an annual cost of $3,685.50.Sources for research studies include the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, University of Toronto; McMaster University, Ontario, Canada; the University of Toronto; the University of Alberta; Stanford University; the University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Umeå University, Sweden/University of Cambridge/University of Gothenburg; the New England Journal of Medicine; and the University of Bologna.

For all media inquiries, please contact:

Richard Laycock, Insights editor and senior content marketing manager

E: uspr@finder.com

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