Supply Your Body With The Right Fuel
To ensure your health, it’s important to limit, be in control, disciplined and eat well. Nutritional science investigates the metabolic and physiological responses of the body to food and diet, including the role of nutrients in the cause, treatment and prevention of disease. In addition, nutrition includes how diseases are identified, malnutrition, metabolic diseases, food allergies and problems that are caused by dietary issues.
Like a finely-tuned racing car, your body needs the right fuel (food) and regular maintenance (exercise and lifestyle) to achieve its true health potential. Put in the wrong fuel or let it go without regular use and there’s no way it can deliver its full power and performance. Most nutrition is common knowledge, but with increased stress, long working hours, dependence on packed, processed and convenience foods and with less opportunity and time to cook, there is a huge gap in the requirement and intake of different nutrients.
It’s common to find people eating too much of salt, sugar, fat and calorie dense food and missing out on micronutrients and fibre. So while we have a population overfed with energy dense food, there is a counter deficiency of essential vitamins and minerals. This scenario calls for a focus on nutrition and advocacy of good eating and cooking practices. Here’s how a balanced diet and eating healthy benefits the body.
- Helps maintain weight
- Boosts immunity
- Improves physical performance
- Delays the effects of ageing
- Gives energy and vitality
- Keeps you fit and active
- Helps beat fatigue and tiredness
- Protects teeth and keeps gums healthy
- Improves mood and enhances the ability to concentrate
- Wards oft serious illnesses like diabetes, certain cancers, gallbladder disease and heart disease
How To Get Ideal Nutrition
Eat Small Portions
Restaurants do not serve small portions these days. When eating out, skip the entree, opt for a starter instead, Share the dish with a friend or partner and never order anything oversized. Use small plates when eating at home and serve small portions. Take the help of visual cues to eat smaller portions of meat, chicken or fish. A teaspoon of oil or salad dressing is about the size of a matchbox and your slice of bread should be small.
Enjoy Your Meals
Savour every bite eat and chew your food, always. Many of us do not take time to enjoy the flavours of the food and completely miss the joy of eating.
Eat Only When Really Hungry
Learn what your body is trying to say Only eat if you are hungry and have a glass of water if you actually need water instead of food. Stop eating before you actually feel full because the body takes a few minutes to get a message from the brain that it is full.
Never Miss Breakfast
A good breakfast will help kick start the metabolism and having small meals through the day instead of three large ones will keep the body energetic and the metabolism high.
Stay Away From Refined Foods
Healthy carbs include fruits, beans, vegetables and whole grains. These carbs make you feel full for longer periods of time, digest slowly and maintain insulin and sugar levels. Stay away from refined foods, pastas, cereals and breads that are not made from whole wheat or grain.
Consume Monounsaturated Fats
These fats come from plants in the form of peanut oil, olive oil and canola oil, from nuts like pecans, almonds and hazelnuts, seeds like sesame, walnuts, flaxseeds, corn and avocados.
Additional Healthy Tips
- Don’t consume pro-packaged and processed foods like frozen dinners and canned soups that contain lots of sodium that always exceeds recommended limits.
- Food made at restaurants contains a lot of calories, fat, sugar and sodium, so be mindful of what you are eating when eating out.
- Let nutrition and healthy food define your physical and mental health and ward off many diseases and illnesses.