Do you want to eat right and don't know where to start?
Read to the end to get the most useful information.
Very often I am asked how easy it is to change your diet to a healthier one. There is no definite answer to this question, so I have prepared an article for you with 10 basic principles of healthy and rational nutrition. I invite you to read!
1. Eat more vegetables
As you know, a healthy diet consists in regularly providing the body with all the necessary nutrients in the right quantities and proportions. Vegetables contain many of these ingredients and should be the foundation of any healthy diet. They are an invaluable source of vitamins, dietary fiber and phyto compounds.
Eating vegetables can reduce your risk of certain types of cancer, diabetes, atherosclerosis and heart attack, and your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
According to the latest nutritional guidelines, you need to consume 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. In practice, this means that vegetables should be present in almost every meal.
2. Eat regularly, preferably 5 times a day
The most important thing is to start your day with a healthy and satisfying breakfast. This will boost your body's performance and prevent you from consuming extra calories in the afternoon. In addition, eating regularly every 3-4 hours will stabilize blood glucose levels and speed up your metabolism. By eating in this way, you will provide yourself with plenty of energy throughout the day, protect yourself from hunger and constant fatigue.
3. Enrich your diet with a variety of foods
Make sure your daily menu contains foods from all food groups. There are six such groups - cereals (bread, cereals, pasta), milk and its products (kefir, cheese, yoghurts, buttermilk), vegetables and fruits.
The next group is meat, fish, and eggs. A separate group includes edible fats, that is, vegetable oils and animal fats (butter, lard). The last group of products is sugar and confectionery, the consumption of which must necessarily be limited.
4. Avoid highly processed and artificial foods
Avoid fast food and ready-made meals available in stores. These highly processed foods are not good - they contain tons of preservatives and flavor and odor enhancers such as aspartame, glucose-fructose syrup, or monosodium glutamate.
In addition, they are rich in fat and salt, the excess of which is not beneficial to health. Processed foods are also low or even zero in vitamins and minerals.
5. Drink more water
Water has many functions in the body, participates in many processes and is responsible for the transport of nutrients. An adult's fluid intake should be at the level of 1.5-2 liters every day, and including the water contained in food, the amount rises to 3-3.5 liters per day. Why such a volume?
Every day, in the process of breathing, an average of 2.6 liters of water are lost through the urinary system and with feces. Water loss is even greater on hot and windy days or during intense physical activity. For the body to function effectively, any fluid loss must be replenished regularly.
6. Avoid store-bought sweets
Confectionery is a source of empty calories. Thus, they supply the body with only a large amount of energy, the excess of which is deposited in the form of adipose tissue. Store-bought sweets contain virtually no nutrients.
Excessive consumption of simple sugars can lead to obesity, tooth decay, and impaired blood glucose levels and, as a result, diabetes. Therefore, it is necessary to limit the consumption of sweets and confectionery as much as possible, or choose those that contain natural sweeteners, such as stevia.
7. Limit salt intake
According to the WHO recommendations, the daily dose of sodium chloride should be 5 grams (teaspoon). In reality, the consumption of salt by the average person reaches 15 grams per day. This is due to the fact that salt is present in food as a natural component, and is also added to products during industrial processing. In addition, large amounts of sodium chloride are used in food preparation.
Therefore, try not to salt until you season the dishes with other spices. Avoid excessive consumption of smoked, canned, and highly processed foods.
8. Replace frying for baking
We all love to fry - it's one of the quickest ways to heat popular foods, especially meat. However, fast does not mean useful. During frying, carcinogenic compounds are formed. Also, most people don't know how to fry properly and don't know what oils to use and at what temperature to cook. And one tablespoon of oil is 90 empty and completely unnecessary calories. The simplest solution to all of these problems is to switch to baking or keep frying to a minimum.
9. Limit meat consumption
The benefits of eating a lot of meat are very small compared to the damage they can cause. This mainly concerns an increased risk of developing lipid disorders and atherosclerosis, certain types of cancer, diseases of the cardiovascular system or chronic acidification of the body. In addition, meat is often consumed in the form of low-quality canned food, which is especially dangerous to health.
Of course, you don't need to go vegetarian right away. If you like meat and can't imagine life without it, just eat it less often and choose only lean, high-quality foods.
10. Change your eating habits
Introducing all the principles of healthy eating into your life can seem daunting. As a result, few people can turn their menu upside down and suddenly start eating 100% healthy food. As the wise proverb says, "Rome was not built immediately." Therefore, as a nutritionist, I recommend making changes as little invasively as possible and always in small steps.
