Key Principles of Healthy Eating as a Path to Health and Longevity

Healthy eating provides lots of benefits. These include maintaining a good physical condition, preventing various diseases, and ensuring longevity. Switching to a healthy diet is quite difficult. But if you follow certain rules, you can achieve this.

Why Eat Healthy 

The state of the human body depends on the food consumed. A properly composed diet helps avoid diabetes, cancer tumors, obesity, cardiovascular disorders, and others.

A balanced diet is the most affordable step to improving  health, the best way to reduce many risks, and prevent premature death. Moreover, adherence to the principles of healthy eating has a beneficial effect on the mental state of a person. According to studies, overweight patients are 37% more likely to develop depression. And this risk is still high, even if those individuals do things they enjoy, like gambling at https://bizzocasino.com or watching their favorite TV shows. People in good shape, on the contrary, feel more confident and calm. 

What Your Diet Should Include 

Fruits and Vegetables

Consume at least 400 g of fruits and vegetables daily so as to supply the body’s required fiber. Newly prepared vegetables should be taken before the main meals in the form of appetizers and salads. Foods that are in season should be taken in the form of fruits, desserts, and healthy snacks.

Fats

The proportion of fat should be less than 30 percent of the total calorie intake in the diet. This is particularly so in the case of those people considered to be obese, particularly overweight individuals.

It’s possible to reduce the consumption of saturated fats and industrially produced trans fats by following a number of rules:

• Boil or steam food.
• Replace pan-frying with baking in the oven.
• Use vegetable oils rich in polyunsaturated fats: sunflower oil, canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, and safflower oil instead of pork fat and butter when cooking.
• Eat only lean meat; all visible fat should be removed.
• Pick dairy products with reduced fat content.
• Eliminate or limit the consumption of baked, smoked, or fried foods.
• Avoid pre-prepared snacks and baked goods containing industrially produced trans fats: pies, doughnuts, muffins, cookies, waffles, etc.

Sugars

The norms of consumption of sugars for adults and children shouldn’t exceed 10% of the total caloric value of the diet. People who manage to reduce their amount to less than 5% of the total food energy feel more alert, note the stabilization of weight, and improve their well-being.

Uncontrolled consumption of carbohydrates significantly increases the risk of dental caries. Excessive consumption of sweets and drinks saturated with free sugars increases the caloric content of the diet and contributes to the rapid gain of extra pounds and obesity. 

The results of medical research confirm that mono- and disaccharides have a negative impact on the human body. They increase blood pressure, cause lipid disorders, and lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases.

Consumption of sugars can be reduced in the following ways:

• Eliminate or minimize consumption of foods and beverages high in glucose, fructose, and sucrose.
• Replace sugary desserts with fresh fruits and vegetables.

5 Tips for Adopting a Healthy Diet

Adhering to the principles of healthy nutrition isn’t difficult. Each person can switch to a healthy diet, having internalized a number of rules.

List Healthy Foods Considering Your Taste Preferences

For example, if you don’t like cabbage, don’t include it in the menu. Otherwise, when you eat it, you will feel irritation and the desire to encourage yourself with something tasty and unhealthy.

Clearly Define the Products for Healthy Snacks

To eliminate the temptation to buy candy, buns, or chocolate bars. Between the main meals, it’s better to eat a boiled egg, apple, orange, grapefruit, a handful of grapes, 6-8 kernels of almonds, or a glass of yogurt without additives.

First Drink a Glass of Water in the Morning

It’s recommended to eat within the first hour after waking up. It can be oatmeal with the addition of berries or dried fruits, a boiled egg, an omelet, and a sandwich with lean meat.

Base Your Diet on Food Habits

If a person has never adhered to the principles of good nutrition, it’s unlikely that they will be able to completely give up sweets, cakes, chips, and sodas. 

Useful food habits should be developed gradually, introducing no more than two changes to the diet at a time. For example, first replace the garnish of fried potatoes with steamed broccoli, then start adding only one spoonful of sugar to tea instead of the usual two. So the transition period will pass painlessly.

Track Calories

Calorie counting is necessary, especially at the initial stage, to learn to determine and analyze the energy value of dishes. Observing the dynamics of weight change and the nutritional value of the diet will help you create an optimal diet.