General Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Lifestyle! Part Two!!

Along with the importance of meal timings, it’s also equally important to keep our diet balanced with all the essential nutrients in recommended proportions. Healthy eating is not about strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, improving your health, and stabilizing your mood. 

One should not make drastic changes when they decide to go healthier. This will always end up as unfinished tasks and people often lose the confidence on diet concepts as well as themselves. It’s important to analyse your existing eating pattern and start making slight changes. As your small changes become habits, you can continue to add more healthy choices.

Don’t be over concerned about calories. Make simple changes first. Think of adding colour, variety and freshness to your meals. Focus on avoiding packaged and processed foods.

It’s very important to focus on how you feel after eating. This will help you to add on more new healthy habits and tastes. It is really important to take this practice further, as it helps to continue for a long time.

People often get mistaken their thirst sensation for hunger. Drinking water helps to flush out the toxins and other waste products. I will share a magic secret about thirst for people who don’t drink water. Water has a thirst quenching nature. The more we drink the more we feel like drinking. So, you just make a start, it will take off on its own to the healthy way.

Eating alone, especially in front of the TV or computer, often leads to mindless overeating. It actually takes a few minutes for your brain to tell your body that it has had enough food, so eat slowly and stop eating before you feel full. The key to a healthy diet is moderation. Moderation is eating as much as your body needs. It’s also about balancing all the essential nutrients like carbohydrate, protein, fat, fibre, vitamins and minerals.  

Carbohydrates are the primary source of energy to the body. 45-65 % of the total calories that we take everyday should be from carbohydrates. Brain consumes only glucose and it requires continuous supply of glucose, which can be supplied by carbohydrates. So, carbohydrates should not be restricted too much. It’s always recommended to take the necessary.

Now it’s important to decide upon the type of carbohydrates. There are two kinds simple and complex. 

• Simple carbohydrates are simple sugars, honey, chocolates, sweats, all processed foods etc. These types of carbohydrates are not so healthy. These should be minimised.
• Complex carbohydrates like whole grain cereals are good for health as they also give the necessary micronutrients and fibre, which are missing in the polished rice. Include whole grain cereals like whole wheat, brown rice (unpolished or semi-polished rice), ragi, oats, brown bread, quinoa, barley etc. 

Healthy carbs are digested slowly, helping you feel full longer and keeping blood sugar and insulin levels stable. If whole grains like brown rice and whole wheat flour don’t sound good at first, start by mixing what you normally use with the whole grains. You can gradually increase the whole grain.

Proteins are very important as they are the building blocks of the body. There are millions of cells in the body which have a wear and tear process throughout life. Apart from this, protein is an integral part of most of the enzymes and hormones which regulate the major functions of the body. 

• The best protein sources are egg, meat and meat products, milk and milk products, pulses and legumes. The protein from non-vegetarian sources is good and abundant but for people who want to lose weight needs to be very careful in choosing the foods as these non-vegetarian sources also contain lot of fat along with the protein. 
• So, choosing the right source of protein is utmost important. Adults need 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight. According to your body weight, distribute your protein intake among the three meals. 

A concern to be addressed in today’s world. People think that carbohydrates are starchy and not good and not required and proteins are the best. Carbohydrates are starchy if you chooses the refined ones. Coming to proteins excess intake is always damaging to the body as the end products of protein metabolism like urea, ammonia and uric acid are harmful and increases the work load of kidneys in eliminating them. This coupled with less intake of water worsens the condition

Fat is the third nutrient which is important. Fat is a very essential nutrient and has got many functions to perform. We take this particular nutrient in excess most of the times which has got many health hazards. So recommendation and limitation are very important in the management of weight and also health.

Fat is also of different types. Irrespective of the type of fat, they provide the same calories but the health effects are different. There are three types of fats namely saturated fats, mono unsaturated fats and poly unsaturated fats.

• Saturated fats include ghee, butter, hydrogenated fat (vanaspathi or dalda), coconut oil etc. These type of fats tend to increase the cholesterol levels in the body and they trigger the onset and progression of cardio vascular diseases. So, it’s always good to avoid or use in moderation (should not exceed 5%of the total fat requirement). 
• Mono unsaturated fats include olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, mustard oil etc. 
• Polyunsaturated fats are found mainly in many fish, nuts, seed and oils from plants (any vegetable oil like sunflower, safflower etc). There are two fractions called omega-3 and omega-6. Maintaining this ratio is very important and this depends on the choice of foods again (refer a dietitian for more information). Using combination of oils is important to maintain health.

Vitamins and Minerals are called as micronutrients as their requirement is very minimal but that minimal quantity should be supplied daily to manage the bodily functions. Vitamins and minerals are the essential components of many enzymes and hormones. They act as catalysts in most of the biochemical reactions in the process of releasing energy. 

• As we eat everyday and energy release also happens every time, it’s important to supply the micronutrients also. Sometimes we eat properly every meal still we may feel weak. In such instances doctors may suggest to take B-complex tablets. Why? It’s not because they supply the energy directly but they aid in the supply.
• We get these micronutrients mainly from fruits and vegetables and also from whole grains. Include 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.

Fibre is a non-nutrient but very essential and does many functions in the body. There are two types of fibres soluble and insoluble. 

• The soluble fibre has a cholesterol lowering effect may be subtle, still, it reduces the risk of heart diseases. It also lowers or at least stabilizes the blood sugar (glucose) levels.
• The insoluble fibre functions believed to prevent constipation and to reduce the risk of colon cancer.

The sources of fibre are grains especially whole grain cereals, fresh vegetables and fruits. No animal foods provide any fibre. If you haven't been eating enough fibre, it's wise to increase your intake slowly. Sudden increase can cause problems like gas, bloating, diarrhoea etc. It's also important to drink plenty of water when eating lots of fibre. Otherwise, it may irritate your digestive tract.

Developing healthy habits will be easy if you do it together. Always have a family meal time. It motivates each other to adopt the healthy approach and you can relish the benefits together too.