If you’re looking for a diet to get your health in check, it can be overwhelming to commit and stick to one. There are thousands to consider that promise fast weight loss or improved health in under a month, but these gimmicky plans are the ones most fail at, only causing those who attempt them to regain any weight lost. That’s why a non-restrictive option—such as the AHEI diet, which stands for the Alternate Healthy Eating Index—that promotes lifestyle changes is best.

“It’s not a commercial diet. It is a scoring system developed by nutrition researchers to measure diet quality based on how well it aligns with evidence-based healthy eating principles,” explains Dr. Ola Otulana, a UK-based general practitioner and addiction specialist.

Understanding the AHEI Diet

The Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) was created by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was recently featured in the journal Nature Medicine.

Since then, the diet has been replacing plans that have reigned supreme for a long time, such as the Mediterranean diet. The AHEI diet focuses on assessing your current diet quality and its potential impact on reducing the risk of chronic diseases. From there, you make changes in your lifestyle.

Instead of calorie counting, the AHEI diet delegates scores to certain foods and macros (or macronutrients). “The AHEI grades your diet, assigning a score ranging from 0 (non-adherence) to 110 (perfect adherence), based on how often you eat certain foods, both healthy and unhealthy fare,” Harvard Health explains.

It’s also important to note that the AHEI Diet is “ideal for anyone wanting to prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes, certain cancers and heart disease,” according to Trista Best, MPH, RD, LD, a registered dietician at the Candida Diet.

It also has multiple benefits for menopausal women. “Its focus on anti-inflammatory, nutrient-rich foods, which can help manage menopause-related symptoms and reduce risks of osteoporosis, heart disease and weight gain,” Best explains.

The AHEI Diet Emphasizes:

• Vegetables, fruits, whole grains
• Nuts and legumes
• Healthy fats
• Plant-based protein
• Fish

The AHEI Diet Limits:

• Red and processed meats
• Sugar-sweetened drinks
• Refined grains
• Sodium and trans fats

The emphasized foods earn positive scores, and the more you intake, the higher the score. Whereas the limited foods will impact your daily score negatively.

“For example, someone who reports eating no daily vegetables would score a zero, while someone who ate five or more servings a day would earn a 10,” Harvard Health notes. “For an unhealthy option, such as sugar-sweetened drinks or fruit juice, scoring is reversed: a person who eats one or more servings would score a zero, and zero servings would earn a 10.”

What’s the Science Behind the AHEI diet?

“Research has consistently linked higher AHEI scores with lower risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even premature death, and it’s based on long-term health outcomes and robust epidemiological data,” Otulana explains. “The focus on whole and unprocessed foods also supports gut health and stable energy levels and also better metabolic balance.”

Originally conducted by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, and the University of Montreal, a study of the AHEI diet revealed its incredible benefits on overall health.

The team followed the health outcomes of more than 105,000 women and men aged 39 to 69 over 30 years. Each participated in dietary questionnaires, which the researchers scored “on how well participants adhered to eight healthy dietary patterns: the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), the Alternative Mediterranean Index (aMED), the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND), the Healthful Plant-Based Diet (hPDI), the Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI), the Empirically Inflammatory Dietary Pattern (EDIP) and the Empirical Dietary Index for Hyperinsulinemia (EDIH),” Harvard shared in press release.

The study found that 9,771 participants—9.3% of the study population—aged healthfully when adhering to one of the healthy dietary patterns. Eating mindfully was linked to healthy aging and an improvement in cognitive, physical and mental health.

After the results were collected, the study found that the AHEI diet was the leading lifestyle plan. Participants with high scores have an “86% greater likelihood of healthy aging at 70 years and a 2.2-fold higher likelihood of healthy aging at 75 years compared to those in the lowest quintile of the AHEI score,” the press release noted.

How to Get Started

Planning is the first step to success when you undertake any lifestyle change.

Start by slowly eliminating your home of any of the limited foods on the AHEI diet list, and then replace them with more picks from the emphasized foods list. Drastically jumping right into the plan can cause limited results or disinterest in the diet in a short time frame. Longevity and sustainability are the keys to the AHEI diet.

Below, find a list of servings you should aim for daily.

• Vegetables: Try to include at least five a day, with a focus on leafy greens versus potatoes and other starchy vegetables.
• Fruit: Aim for four servings a day, but try to avoid fruit juices since they are high in sugar.
• Whole Grains: The AHEI Diet calls for five to six servings a day.
• Nuts and Legumes: At least one serving of each.
• Healthy Fats: Add a limited amount of healthy fats: Avocado, olive oil and peanut oil are excellent options.
• Plant-Based Protein: At least one serving daily.
• Fish: A weekly serving is best.

Experts are quick to recommend the AHEI diet to their patients for a laundry list of reasons.

“The AHEI model reflects a very sensible, realistic way of eating that’s supported by strong scientific evidence,” Otulana says. “It’s adaptable to different cultures and dietary preferences and doesn’t involve extreme restrictions, which helps with adherence. From a GP’s perspective, that makes it both safe and effective.”

With any diet, it takes time to adjust to the serving sizes and emphasized foods, so don’t give up! The more you incorporate the recommended foods into your everyday routine, the easier it will become, and soon, it will become second nature. Dedication is the key to longevity and a healthy body and mind.