Having a healthy diet is very important to the level of your daily performance. Your good health is your most important asset. One of the greatest challenges we all face today is deciding what meals will have the greatest impact on our health. The media are not helping matters: They have flooded the marketplace with information on dieting, exercise, nutritional supplements, and numerous other matters relating to our health.
The unfortunate thing is that most of this information are contradictory. As one health expert noted, ‘advice to the public about what to eat and what medicines to take seems to do about-face each time a new study is published in a medical journal’.
Some doctors have therefore advised that sticking with the basics is a more sensible approach to good health than trying to experiment with every new health fad that comes along. For example, the American Medical Association Family Medical Guide said: “You can stay healthier throughout your life by making positive lifestyle changes…” What does this involve? In this article we’ll discuss one major pillar of good health: Your diet.
A Healthy Diet is the most important of all the factors contributing to healthy living, the quality of our diet is the most crucial. Fortunately, it is also the one factor about our health over which we seem to have total control. Our biological history or hereditary factors are beyond our control, even though they exert an influence on our health. Not so with our diet. Let’s take a look at what constitutes a good diet and why it so important to abide by it.
Medical authorities recommend that we eat a wide variety of foods, and that the largest portion of our calories should come from what they call ‘complex carbohydrates’, such as is found in grains, beans, vegetables and fruits. But the major problem with many diets today is that it often involves cutting out an entire group or even groups of food in order to lose weight.
There is no doubt that removing carbohydrates from your meal will help you lose weight faster. But that way, you’re on a very UNHEALTHY diet. Cutting off certain aspects of the food pyramid would deny your body of vital nutrients it needs to make you stay healthy.
However, since our health is affected not only by what we eat but also HOW MUCH we eat them, it is therefore important to eat our various foods in moderation. The sensible approach is to eat right by balancing all the food groups.
In recent years, a lot of attention has been given to the matter of dietary fat. Rightly, many health experts warn that a diet high in saturated fats raises the risks of heart disease and some types of cancer. However, this does not imply that we should TOTALLY eliminate fats from our diet. There’s room to still enjoy the things we love while observing moderation. The key is to keep portions small and limit other sources of fat in our diet.
Moreover, opting for fresh products prepared in your home is a lot healthier than anything an attractive can may hold. Of course, this does not rule out eating out once in a while. But if you are interested in healthy diet, eating out should be the exception, not the rule.
Thus, while trying to learn about the importance of a healthy diet, it is important to differentiate between healthy living and dieting fads. Eating right will both keep your body in its natural shape as well as in optimum working condition. And if you are a parent, remember that your attitude in this matter is sure to affect how your children will view food. Help them to develop a balanced attitude towards food.
Learning about healthy diet is the only way you can live and feel better. It will also help you to eat sensibly without allowing concern about what you eat to take over your life. It will enable you to put things in perspective. Moreover, this information should help you to realize that no matter how busy you may be, you should always find time to have healthy meals throughout the day, knowing that food is the fuel your body needs to continue to ‘run’ efficiently.
What are your thoughts of a healthy diet?
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