Being conscious of your diet and following a structured meal plan has immense benefits and is a sure way to avoid lifestyle diseases and maintain overall healthy wellbeing. It means keeping tabs on dietary needs and putting a cap on trans-fats, saturated fats, and added sugars. Sounds restrictive? It shouldn’t be. It’s possible to follow a diet plan and still enjoy tasty treats in places like Whisk Bakery & Coffee without compromising your health in a very uncomplicated way! There are many ways to always consider dietary restrictions by making customized treats.
What Is a Balanced Diet?
This is simply a diet plan that, when adhered to, provides your body the daily nutrients and calories it requires for optimum functioning. The nutrient requirements may vary from person to person depending on age, gender, and physical activity. There are dietary guidelines regarding what amount of calories each person should take; a constant imbalance may lead to many complications like obesity and malnutrition.
Some of the main recommended food categories to source your required daily calories are lean proteins, fresh fruit & vegetables, legumes & nuts, wholegrains & potatoes, unsaturated fats, and low-fat dairy products. Always remember to keep hydrated throughout the day with clean water.
There are many reasons to decide on starting a healthy diet regime; the sooner you start, the more benefits you start to accrue. Let’s look at seven reasons you should consider it now!
1. Weight Management
There are several ways to lose weight rapidly and not consider the effect on your overall health. The best approach, also long-term, is through a combination of eating healthy coupled with various exercises. This addresses the reason for weight gain in the first place, which is most often a diet filled with processed foods and sugars with little or no physical activity. Simply knowing how to juggle between healthy foods can make one fuller for longer periods, and incorporating exercises ultimately leads to weight loss.
The same case applies to a person wanting to gain weight, the same combination of healthy foods (in this case, those high in calories like nuts) and exercise works the magic.
2. Body Growth and Repair
Your body is made of complex mechanisms that require a constant supply of various nutrients to initiate repair and growth throughout your life. A deficiency of certain nutrients may impact some of these bodily functions negatively, more so as we age. A healthy diet can see to it that the body maintains these functions until old age.
3. Prevention of Lifestyle Diseases
The phrase “we are what we eat” is true in its literal definition; many life complications and diseases are caused directly by what we choose to ingest. A poor diet, consisting of empty calories and refined sugar, taken constantly has proven to cause conditions and diseases ranging from hypertension to heart disease and diabetes. Your body needs the nutrients provided by healthy foods to maintain a strong immune system hence preventing and fighting off illnesses.
4. Boosted Energy Levels
Most healthy foods release energy slowly into the body system, keeping you brimming with energy throughout the day compared to processed foods with a high glycemic index and little nutritional value. The latter will be broken down and absorbed quickly, causing a momentary energy surge followed by a low. Eating breakfast consisting of proteins, whole grains, and possibly healthy unsaturated fat is key to ensuring boosted energy levels.
5. Improved Mental Health
The brain functions as your body’s main processing point, and it’s our mandate to ensure it’s healthy enough to serve us well. What could you do better than ensuring a constant supply of the nutrients needed for its optimum function? Healthy foods (avocadoes, fish, walnuts) containing omega 3 fatty acids serve our brains better than any other food. Anything that affects it negatively should be avoided at all costs if some mental disorders are to be kept at bay.
6. Higher Sleep Quality
A tiring day’s activities followed by a deep quality sleep usually feels like the body has been reset and can withstand yet another day of various activities. Various parts of the body, from muscles to the brain, are re-energized. Losing sleep or having poor quality sleep can affect you in so many detrimental ways and can be triggered by a poor diet. On the other hand, having a healthy diet ensures you get no digestive issues that might affect your sleep quality.
7. Motivation for your Kids
The best way to motivate your kids to lead healthy lifestyles and choose healthy foods is by letting them see you do it. Kids learn most by observing what adults around them are doing and imitating them. Choosing healthy foods will expose them to healthy eating habits early on in life. This will increase the possibility of them maintaining the same routine in their adult lives.