So it seems you want to improve your diet. Fantastic idea. Do you know what can be done with a healthy diet?
You can lose weight, gain weight or just maintain your weight as is. You can lower your cholesterol or your blood pressure or perhaps just keep those numbers in a healthy range. You can improve your immune system, your energy level, your athletic performance, your skin, your teeth, your bones and a whole lot more. You can greatly lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes and a variety of other health issues. You can help control, prevent, aid, or improve nearly every aspect of your health and your body.
Of course, you probably know this already. What you may not know is where to go from there. I mean, this all sounds great and everything, but uh, what do you do now? The decision to improve your overall diet and nutrition leads a lot of people to a lot of questions. For example:
What should I eat?
What shouldn't I eat?
How much should I eat?
Which nutrients should I eat?
What does each nutrient do?
What foods contain these nutrients?
How much of each am I supposed to consume each day?
Is this guy ever going to stop with the example questions?
I have broken it all down into 2 fairly simple parts; the learning and the doing. First up, the learning...
Below you will find a chart containing the most important parts of every person's diet. Along with each will be a short description explaining what it is, what its role is in the human body, the recommendations for how much of it you should consume per day, and the most common foods that contain a significant amount of it. For the most part, this is pretty much all there is to the basics of nutrition. Check it out...
Calories
A calorie is the unit of measurement for how much energy there is in a food or drink. We consume calories in the form of carbohydrates, protein and fat (and alcohol) which all contain a certain number of calories per gram (see right column). The calories are used by the body to do literally everything it needs to do (pump blood, walk, etc.). This is why very low calorie diets are dangerous and should be avoided.
Calories per gram:
Carbs: 4 cals
Protein: 4 cals
Fat: 9 cals
Alcohol: 7 cals
Fat
Despite all of the crazy things you may have heard, fat is required by our bodies to function properly. For starters, certain vitamins can not be absorbed by the body without fat. It also plays an important role in healthy hair, skin and cell function and is the source of essential fatty acids, another extremely important part of our diet.
I will also mention that the idea that "eating fat makes you fat" is a myth. As mentioned above, weight gain/loss is controlled by calories. If you supply your body with too many calories, you will gain fat. It won't matter what nutrient those calories came from (fat, protein or carbs), too much of anything will cause weight gain.
Almonds, walnuts, peanuts, other nuts and seeds, salmon, sardines, mackerel, other fish and fish oil, olive oil, canola oil, avocados.
Saturated Fat
This is one of the so-called "bad" fats. Despite there being some debate as to exactly what degree saturated fats negatively affect us (it seems less evil than it was originally made out to be), it still appears as though saturated fat should be limited to SOME extent in most people's diets.
Animal and poultry fat. Milk, cheese, butter and other dairy products. Most typical junk food (candy bars, chips and similar snack foods, pastries, cookies, desserts, etc.) and fast food items.
Trans Fat
Trans fat is bad. In fact, it just may be as bad as it gets. Trans fat has been shown to raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol levels. A diet containing a significant amount of trans fat increases your risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and possibly even more. Long story short, avoid it.
Most fast food and common junk food items contain the largest amounts of trans fat. However, small amounts can still be found in foods ranging from breakfast cereals to certain brands of whole wheat bread to everything in between. Be sure to check the ingredients (as mentioned in the middle column) to know for sure if your food legitimately contains any.
Cholesterol
Cholesterol isn't entirely a bad thing. It's actually required by the body to build and maintain cell membranes and is used for many other important functions as well. There are two ways that we get cholesterol. One is by the body itself, which the liver actually produces. The other way is through our diet. The amount produced by the body is usually all that we require, which means the amount we get through our diet should be kept within a certain limit (more on that in the middle column).
Egg yolks, dairy products, meat, chicken, turkey and fish.
Sodium
Sodium is another nutrient that's viewed as "bad" even though a certain amount is actually required by the body to help maintain proper fluid balance, help with the function of nerves and muscles, and more. It's when sodium intake is too high that the negative effects (most notably high blood pressure) occur. This makes sodium another nutrient that should be limited in our diet.
Salted snack foods (pretzels, chips, etc.), many fast food items, many canned foods, ham, bacon, corned beef, hot dogs and other similar meats, certain frozen foods, and certain dressings. And of course, any food you add salt to.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates (AKA carbs) are a major source of energy for the body. The older, simpler explanation of carbs goes something like this. There are two different types; simple and complex.
Fruits and vegetables, beans, oatmeal, brown rice, and other whole wheat/whole grain foods
Fiber
Fiber plays a key role in the health of the digestive system. There are two types, soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber has been associated with reducing LDL cholesterol and an overall decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. Insoluble fiber is also associated with decreasing cardiovascular risk as well as slowing the progression of cardiovascular disease in those who may already have it to some degree. In addition, foods high in fiber (see the right column for examples) are typically also low in saturated and trans fat and high in a variety of important nutrients.
Fruits and vegetables, oatmeal, beans, bran and most whole grain/whole wheat products.
Protein
Protein plays an important role in muscle, cell and organ function and is necessary for building and repairing the body's tissues. It is present in muscle, hair, skin, bone, and nearly every other body part, which makes protein a very important part of a healthy diet.
Chicken, turkey, meat (the leaner the better), fish, eggs, egg whites and, to a somewhat lesser extent, nuts and beans.
It's just a matter of making sure these calories come from good sources that provide the things your body needs and limits the things that it doesn't. Let's break that down step-by-step:
1. Calories
This is the starting point of diet creation, figuring out the number of calories you should be consuming each day in order for your weight to do what you want it to do. Your choices here are weight loss, weight gain or weight maintenance. As you learned earlier, in order to lose weight, you must consume less calories than your body needs. In order to gain weight, you must consume more calories than your body needs. And, if you just want to keep your weight right where it is, you need to consume the same number of calories that your body needs. For a much better explanation of this and to figure out how many calories your body needs (and therefore how many you need to eat per day) check out my Guide To Calories & Weight Control. It will explain everything. When you're done, come back here and move on to
2. Fat, Carbs and Protein
Now that you've figured out what your total daily calorie intake should be, it's time to figure out where those calories are going to come from. As you learned above, fat, carbs and protein will supply these calories. Now it's just a matter of eating the right amount of each. So, just go back up and remind yourself of those recommendations. And no, it doesn't have to be exact. Anywhere within range of those recommendations is perfectly fine.
3. Food Selection
Alright, so you got your calorie intake nailed down, and now you know how much of each nutrient (fat, carbs and protein) will supply those calories. Now you just need to select the foods that will supply these nutrients while at the same time ensuring that you avoid and/or limit the things you should not be eating. To do this, just go back through the food sources recommended for fat, carbs and protein, and pick your favorites. Simple enough.
4. Organization
Once you have all of the quantities figured out and have made sure the quality is what it should be, all that's left to do is organize it. This could mean coming up with a rough idea of what your daily diet should be and then just improvising, or it could mean writing up a complete daily or weekly meal plan with everything planned and figured out in advance. I can't tell you which you you should do, but I can tell you that the more planning you do, the easier it will be to not end up in a situation where you're eating something you shouldn't, or just eating more/less than you should. I will also mention that the times you eat (early or late) and the amount of meals you eat (3 meals or 6 meals) doesn't matter at all. As long as you're eating the right total amount of calories, protein, fat and carbs per day and getting those nutrients from mostly higher quality sources, you should organize it all in whatever way makes you most likely to consistently stick to it. The specifics are insignificant, so do whatever is most enjoyable and convenient for you.
5. Consistency
A healthy diet is useless if you aren't consistent with it. Remember, this isn't a temporary thing. Unless you only want the results to be temporary and the benefits to be nearly nonexistent, this has to become your new permanent way of eating. So, be as consistent as you can and make a healthy diet a regular part of your life.
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