Why is Healthy Eating Important?

Healthy eating is a much debated subject. Why is healthy eating important? Even though we are each basically the same, in that we have a rough physical appearance, our inner chemistry, with reference to our genetics, our lifestyle, our diet and our mental attitudes can vary so much, that you would sometimes think that we were a different species.

Much that is written, regarding diet is probably true for a certain percentage of the population, but very little is true for all of us.

One food that can cause weight loss, muscle growth and an energy boost for one person may not be as advantageous for another. Sifting through the vast advice, which is out there to keep you slim and healthy can be a daunting task. You may have tried some. Some may have worked for a while, others don’t do anything, while others actually make you feel worse.

You begin to start wondering if there is any information that really works and can take out the guess work, out of what is good for you and keeps you slim.

I am not making any guarantees either, but my twenty years of research has taught me that there are regimes to follow that really work, will keep you slim, will give you more energy and will go a long way to improving your overall health.

Health begins with having the right mental attitude. The right thoughts are essential to the correct functioning of the body. Please read our article called “How to use the Mind and Body Connection for Better Health” before you decide on the best diet for you. Other articles which you may want to read for the first time, or to refresh your memory are called “Organic Food and Produce Explained“, “Proteins, Fats and Carbohydrates in Foods“, and also one called “Probiotics“.

The first thing to consider when looking for your perfect diet and the benefits of healthy eating, is finding foods that improve your digestion and the best times to eat them. There are enzymes in certain foods which will aid your digestion of your food. Foods such as green leafy vegetables will enhance the efficiency of the body to digest the foods you eat with them. So it is a good idea to eat some with your main meal of the day or at least your evening meal, which is usually the hardest for your body to digest as your system tends to slow down as the day progresses. The old adage of eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper is a good rule to follow.

There have been numerous studies about the effects of the quantities of food we eat and what is the best time to eat them.

Your kingly breakfast has been proven to work and to be the best way to stay slim long term. It has also been proven that a good balanced breakfast will improve your mood and keep you calm and motivated for the rest of the day. In contrast those people who skip or snatch a lite breakfast are generally more moody and irritable, even if they have a good meal later in the day.

Staying slim is very much a question of keeping your metabolic rate high. This is how your body will burn up a given number of calories. Understanding how your body uses your metabolic rate will guide you to know how much and what to eat to reach a required result

Your metabolic rate is your bodies-defense mechanism against starvation. Most people think that all they have to do to lose weight is to eat less. This idea comes from those people who used to calorie count. They thought if your body used 2500 calories per day just to exist, then by eating 2000 calories of food you would lose weight. This is a very short term notion and after a few days your metabolic rate would begin to fall, because your body has decided that you must be starving yourself. It is quite likely that the weight that you maintained by consuming 2500 calories per day, would be the same weight with 2000 calories a day. So convinced that they are right, these people reduce their calorie intake further more to keep losing weight, and even further more because their metabolic rate keeps falling and they are either losing very little weight or maybe putting it back on. They are now eating only a fraction of what they used to. They are then in a situation of not knowing what to do for the best. This is known as see-sawing, taking weight off and later to put it back on after.

The trick to losing weight is not how little you can eat, but how much you can eat of the right foods and when to eat them.

The body requires a certain amount of carbohydrates at any one time depending on your metabolic speed. This is energy fuel. Whatever extra carbohydrates you take in will be stored as fat to be used later if you need it for extra energy. Also, when you eat your metabolic rate is temporarily increased for a short time. Armed with this knowledge you can use it to solve any individual requirement.

If you want to lose weight you need to eat up to 6 small meals per day, with the last meal before 6 pm or at least 5 hours before going to bed. These 6 meals can be 3 main meals, and made up with snacks in between. When using any healthy snacks recipes make sure that at every meal or snack it contains some protein. If you are having a piece of fruit as a snack meal make sure you eat some nuts, seeds, low fat cheese or some other kind of protein along-side it, because your blood sugar can elevate with just having carbohydrates. If you want to put weight on, eat only 2 large meals per day.

By eating 6 small meals per day you are keeping your metabolic rate up, but never exceed your carbohydrate requirements. By eating only 2 meals per day your metabolic rate will stay low and you will always have exceeded your carbohydrate requirements.

Try experimenting and eating some vegetarian food which will nor have any hard saturated animal fats in. If you are a beginner with vegetarian food a good DVD by professional chef ,Antoinette, who runs a cookery school is called simply “How to Cook vegetarian“.

Balancing your weight is the first step to a healthier body. If you are under weight and too thin you will never have any reserves of energy especially when we need to do work and exercise which is the next aspect of health you need to address.

If you are too overweight, your weight might restrict your effects to exercise and because exercise increases your metabolic rate you are not getting all the help you need to lose weight.

We all need to exercise to be our ideal weight. Eating the correct amount of food alone will never totally bring you to your ideal weight and good health.

Any weight gain is virtually directly related to your carbohydrate intake, but there is an aspect of carbohydrates which is also important. All carbohydrates have a glycaemic index. The G I (glycaemic index) of a carbohydrate is a measurement of the degree of insulin required to remove the sugar from 100 grams of a food from the bloodstream.

Not only are high G.I. foods a strain on your system because of the need for extra insulin production, but the highs and lows of your blood sugar mean that energy is not even and constant. Sugar cravings can result, which causes an imbalance in what you eat and when. Read our article called “Glycaemic Index and Glycaemic Load for a Balanced Blood Sugar”.

Make sure you keep to foods with a rating of 59 or less. This will help your weight, your energy levels and your health. You will find very low G.I. foods will have little or no effect on your weight.

High protein foods such as fish are a good weight loss food because it will boost your metabolic rate while containing little or no carbohydrates and no bad fat. Meat is a high protein food, but it contains a high amount of saturated fat which can be used for energy, but if eaten in the evening it is likely to be transferred to fat, especially if your metabolic rate is low, and excess amounts of fat in the body are not good for your health.

A final word about fats. There are fats which are good for your health. Essential fatty acids or E.F.As come from dark torpedo fish like salmon and mackerel, and from nuts and seeds and other plants like olives and avocado pears. These good fats have actually been proven to lower body fat and are part of weight loss programs in some Harley Street clinics. They also provide a counter-balance to bad fats in the body. If you don’t consume enough of these foods you can supplement with fish oil capsules or flax oil.

Follow these guidelines and change your shape and your health. This is the correct way to achieve a long term result. This way will not give you a yo-yo effect which works for a while then returns to normal.

Why is healthy eating important? Remember that a good diet and lifestyle is something you need to work at daily, not whenever you feel like it, even though some healthy eating would be better than not at all. Commit yourself to doing this every day and before long the benefits of healthy eating will leave you trim and healthy permanently.