The DASH Diet Plan
The DASH diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and was designed to help lower blood pressure, cholesterol, as well as help prevent diabetes1.
The DASH diet focuses on reducing your sodium intake, and eating nutrient rich foods, which have been found to help lower blood pressure naturally.
Although this is not strictly a weight loss program, it has helped many lose weight due to its focus on great eating habits.
Fitium is an online personalised diet plan which takes advantage of some of the core fundamentals of the DASH Diet so you can lose weight and reap the DASH benefits.
Click here to find out more about our unique approach to weight loss, and how our personalised diet plan can help you lose weight the smart way.

A taster of our DASH inspired meal plans
Fitium features a wide range of meal plans tailored to your diet needs, that take advantage of nutrient rich whole foods featuring low sodium content.
Reduce those cravings
Target hypertension
Lower risk of diabetes1
Tasty nutrient rich meals
May lower cholesterol1
Encourage fat burning

How Does The DASH Diet Work?
The DASH diet focuses on reducing your sodium intake, and eating nutrient rich foods, which have been found to help lower blood pressure naturally.
Because the DASH diet emphasizes a healthy approach to eating, it may also offer protection against diabetes, stroke, heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis. And whilst the DASH diet is not strictly a weight loss program, it has helped many lose weight due to its solid foundation on great eating habits.
A typical DASH diet meal plan will contain up to 2,300mg of sodium a day (1,500mg) on the lower sodium DASH diet, compared to over 3,500mg of sodium you would normally find in a typical western diet.

Putting the DASH diet into practice
The DASH diet features whole grains, lean proteins, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes, dairy with less emphasis on starchy foods, sugars, and Fats.
The DASH diet works in two phases:

In phase 1, DASH suggests a lower carb diet cutting out starchy vegetables, grains, fruit and sugar, with more emphasis on protein and less fat.

In phase 2, carbohydrates such as wholegrains and fruits are re-introduced, but with a continued emphasis on lower fat.

Is the DASH diet healthy?
The DASH diet was originally developed to help lower blood pressure, and is founded on sound nutritional science.
The DASH diet was recently voted the healthiest diet in the U.S. by a panel of doctors2 and is endorsed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the American Heart Association (AHA)

Is the DASH diet for you?
Although the DASH diet was not originally a weight loss diet, it has been found to help target weight gain factors and help with weight loss.
Plus If you currently consume a typical western diet, then this approach comes highly recommended as it has been found to help prevent many of the diseases associated with our modern diet including high blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease, kidney stones and diabetes.

How does Fitium compare?
Fitium takes advantage of many of the principles used in the DASH diet, such as the focus on lowering sodium intake, the preference for whole foods, as well as the emphasis on lowering intake of nutritionally poor carbohydrates.
But Fitium provides additional benefits by incorporating these into a diet plan tailored to your diet goal.
These include:
Helping you find the right macronutrient mix so you can lose weight naturally
Designing meals that keep you satisfied and cut down on cravings
Prioritising foods with high nutrient quality to get important vitamins & minerals
Optimising meals to promote fat burn rather than fat storage
Optimising meals to promote fat burn rather than fat storage
Finally, Fitium is not just a diet, but a complete weight loss system tailored to your needs, featuring everything you need to start getting results fast.
[1] Effects of the DASH diet alone and in combination with exercise and weight loss on blood pressure and cardiovascular biomarkers in men and women with high blood pressure: the ENCORE study. Authors: Blumenthal JA, Babyak MA, Hinderliter A, Watkins LL, Craighead L, Lin PH, Caccia C, Johnson J, Waugh R, Sherwood A. Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Jan 25, 2010;170(2):126-35.
Diet-quality scores and the risk of type 2 diabetes in men. Authors: de Koning L, Chiuve SE, Fung TT, Willett WC, Rimm EB, Hu FB. Published in Diabetes Care. 2011 May;34(5):1150-6. Epub 2011 Apr 4.
Effects of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Eating Plan on Cardiovascular Risks Among Type 2 Diabetic Patients: A Randomized Crossover Clinical Trial. Diabetes Care republised on medscape.
[2] US News Best Diets US News