What Does “Eating Healthy” Really Mean?

With hundreds of different diet plans, exercise plans, fad diets and weight loss short cuts out there, it can be extremely difficult for people to figure out what healthy eating really means. Does eating healthy really have to do with downing protein shakes, drastically cutting calories, eliminating carbs and taking diet pills to help you lose weight? Do you need to take a multivitamin as a part of eating healthy? If you are not sure what eating healthy is really all about, then you are never going to obtain the weight loss success that you need, because fad diets, starvation diets, carbohydrate free diets and other diet short cuts are never, ever going to help you lose weight on a healthy, permanent basis.

Eating healthy, first and foremost, means consuming enough calories, and consuming the right protein, carbohydrates and fats accordingly. In order to eat healthy, you need to be consuming the right number of calories for your age, weight and lifestyle, which for an average adult is approximately 2,000 calories.

To go beyond this, you need to eat the right proportion of fat, proteins and carbohydrates based on how many calories you are consuming. This ratio is important, because each of these three types of calories is absolutely vital to your health and well being. Not all fats are bad fats so you need some fat in your diet, and despite what the Atkins diet says, low carb or no carb diets are not healthy for you either. A single gram of carbohydrates is equal to four calories, which is the same for a single gram of protein. A single gram of fat on the other hand is equal to nine calories. Foods that are low in fat tend to be higher in carbohydrates, while low carbohydrate foods are generally much higher in fat.

Your body needs more than 45 different nutrients every single day. These nutrients are absolutely essential for your health, and must be provided in the foods that you are eating. There are five different classes of nutrients that your body needs, which are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrates and starches, fibers and sugar. Proteins include 22 different amino acids that are vital for your health. Fats include monounsaturated fats, saturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. These nutrients are vital for providing materials to build your body tissues as well as to repair them and maintain them. They also supply substances that function in your body process regulation and they furnish the fuel that you need for your body to have energy. Eating healthy is all about supplying these vital nutrients for optimum health and well being.

In order to eat healthy you need to combine healthy foods to receive all of these nutrients. Your diet should be rich in fruits and vegetables, healthy carbohydrates, proteins like meat and eggs and dairy like milk and yogurt. By properly balancing all of these foods in your diet, you will have a much greater chance of eating healthy overall.

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Originally posted 2008-12-11 05:11:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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2 comments ↓
#1 DR on 12.11.08 at 8:38 am

At the most basic level, we are a massive collection of single cells working together to maintain life as a human being.

When it comes to nutrition, at the most basic level, we are trying to fuel those billions of cells.

When dieters focus on calories, they are ignoring many aspects of good nutrition.

Vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fatty acids, fiber, protein, carbs, and various living organisms make up only part of the factors involved in feeding our cells.

To get as much of the “good stuff” that our cells need, we need to focus on real food.

And as the saying goes, “garbage in = garbage out”

#2 Robert Young on 05.27.09 at 10:17 pm

Yes healthy eating is about getting the right nutrients in your body and a way to also do that without getting complicated is eat a variety of foods.

Make sure you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables as well as protien, carbs and essential fats.

If you are not sure what you are getting have some multi vitamins to get your daily vitamin intake.

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