Balanced Diet

What is balanced diet?

It's a habit of consuming all the right nutrients that your body needs to be healthy. Everyone's bodies are different and often require a different amount and type of nutrients. This can vary based on age, gender, illness and lifestyle and level of physical activity. When combined with physical exercise, your diet can help you to reach and maintain a healthy weight, decrease your risk of chronic diseases (like heart disease and cancer), and improve your overall health.

The best way to eat for health is to choose a variety of foods from each of the five food groups every day:

vegetables and legumes (beans).
fruits.
grains and cereals.
meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts, seeds.
milk, cheese yogurt or alternatives.

Below are the essential things which are useful for maintaining a balanced diet:

Drink plenty of water, six to eight glasses are the recommended amount.
Always eat breakfast, it is an important meal of the day.
Reduce your salt intake.
Cut down sugar and saturated fat intake.
Use starchy foods as the base of your meals.
Aim for at least two portions of fish every week. Fish is another important source of protein and contains many vitamins and minerals.Oily fish is particularly rich in omega-3 fatty acids.
It is best to divide your meal times into five small meals with breakfast as the main meal of the day, followed by a mid-morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.

Note: There must be a gap of at least 3 hours between each of these meals. This gap of more than 3 hours increases the levels of stress hormone cortisol in the body that signals the body to store fat in the abdominal region. Eating frequent small meals helps in keeping cortisol levels under control and helps in reducing belly fat in both men and women. Being hungry can also make you weak and lethargic. If you are maintaining a proper mealtime, it will help you in digesting the food in a better and faster way

What is the importance of balanced Diet?

A balanced diet is essential because our organs and tissues need proper nutrition to work efficiently. Without sufficient nutrition, your body is more prone to disease, infection, fatigue, and inadequate performance. In the case of children, a bad diet can jeopardize their growth and can lead to developmental problems and poor academic performance. Poor eating habits can persist for the rest of their lives. The rising levels of obesity and diabetes are prime examples of the effects of a poor diet and a lack of exercise. There's good confirmation that eating a healthy diet can reduce your risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis and some types of cancer.

What Are Calories?

The number of calories in food is measured by the amount of energy stored in that food. Our body utilizes calories for various activities such as walking, thinking, breathing, and other essential functions. An average person needs to eat about 2000 -2500 calories every day to maintain their weight.

Daily Requirements for a grown woman and man are as follows

	Women	Men
Energy	2000 kcal	2500 kcal
Total fat	70 g	95 g
Carbohydrate	230 g	300 g
Protein	45 g	55 g
Total Sugars	90 g	120 g
Fiber	24 g	24 g
Salt	6g	6 g

Health Tips:

Consume small but frequent meals.
Eat always 75% capacity of your stomach.
Never walk directly after eating your meals.
Do not lie down immediately after eating food.
Never skip your dinner or make it very light.
Dinner should be the 3/4th quantity of Lunch.
Include multivitamins and minerals in either your diet or as supplements.
Always include at least two whole raw vegetables in your salad.
Try to add black pepper to most of your meals as it increases the availability of nutrients.
Try and include green chilies in your food and avoid red chilies.
Perform Vajrasan for nearly 10 minutes for better digestion of your meals.