Guidelines-Balanced Diet

Contrary to how it may seem these days, you don’t actually need a degree in nutrition to be able to create your own healthy and balanced diet. The key points that you need to know are:
· The amount of fat needed to maintain health and appearance (yes, you do actually need some fat!) varies from person to person, according to age, height, occupation, level of activity, and other factors that make us all unique. You should cut-down on, or cut-out, ‘high-fat’ foods that don’t contain many (if any) vitamins and minerals, such as pastry, but you can still eat small amounts of ‘high-fat’ foods which contain good levels of vitamins and minerals, such as cheese and avocado.
· There is a difference between the sugars which are naturally contained in fruit and vegetables (and other natural foods), and the types that are added to cakes, chocolate, soft drinks, etc. (e.g. granulated, caster, Demerara). Although sugars such as granulated and caster originate in sugar cane, which of course is a plant, they are not regarded as ‘natural’ because they are extracted from the cane, and then ‘added’ to other foods. Most people don’t consume too much natural sugar, but many people consume far too much ‘added’ sugar.
· Consuming an excessive amount of salt increases the risk of developing medical problems, so you need to know what the recommended daily limits for salt consumption are, and which foods contain a lot of salt.
· Drinking an excessive amount of alcohol causes weight gain and potentially life-threatening illnesses, so you need to know what the recommended daily limits are.
· The different colours of fruits and vegetables are associated with specific antioxidants, which are essential for maintaining good health. This is why it is important to include a variety of different-coloured fruit and vegetables in a healthy diet. Fruit and vegetables ‘count’ whether they are fresh, frozen, canned, dried, pureed, or ‘pressed’ in a drink - but eating a variety of whole fruits and vegetables will help to ensure that a combination of insoluble and soluble fiber is included in your diet. An adequate intake of insoluble fiber prevents constipation, and soluble fiber helps to reduce cholesterol.
If you’re going to take this gradual approach, then you should make all the necessary changes to your diet, and then wait a couple of weeks before you first check to see if you’ve lost any weight. If your bathroom scales have been well-used, then it may be worthwhile buying a new set, as your current scales may have become inaccurate. However, although initially weighing yourself to see if you’re losing some weight will indicate whether the changes that you’ve made to your diet are having some effect, setting yourself an ultimate target-weight to achieve is not recommended. You should be aiming for a healthy shape, rather than a specific weight, and you will need to exercise, as well as eating a healthy diet, to achieve that shape – but be realistic about it and bear in mind that not many people have perfect bodies, hence the difference between paparazzi photographs of celebrities and the airbrushed photographs that are shown in magazines. You shouldn’t eat a less than ‘normal‘ amount of food to compensate for not exercising – the guidelines and the suggestions for what to eat and drink at different times of the day will give you an idea of what a ‘normal’ daily amount of food is, but the actual amounts needed by each person will vary.
Don't be put-off if you think that it all sounds like complicated hard work - you don’t need to calculate exactly how much fat, ‘added’ sugar, and salt you’re consuming every day, but you need to have at least a rough idea to start with, and eventually you should be able to choose what to eat and drink without giving it too much thought. The sections of the website that give suggestions for what to eat and drink at different times of the day show how simple a healthy balanced diet can be - most food and drinks included are very 'ordinary', with just a few items that you may not have considered before . They can also help you to make gradual changes to your diet - for example, you could start by considering whether the snacks and desserts that you’re currently eating could be replaced with healthier options, and it may be that changing your choice of snacks and desserts is all you have to do to improve your diet. Or, you could start by considering what you eat and drink in the mornings, and then a week later consider what you’re eating for lunch, and so on. Make any changes to your diet in a way that suits you.
Please ensure that you have read the Important Notice in the Introduction.
This website includes guidelines for fat, sugar, salt, and alcohol consumption, so that you can decide what items to eat and drink, rather than having to follow a rigid diet - plan, which can be stressful and unrealistic. The guidelines highlight which foods are nutritious, and can be included in a healthy balanced diet, and which foods should be avoided. The UK Food Standards Agency still recommends that meals should be based on a starchy carbohydrate (e.g. bread, potatoes, pasta), although some research has suggested that these types of foods can contribute towards weight-gain, and many people have made drastic reductions to their carbohydrate intake in an effort to lose weight. However, there is also considerable research which concludes that a person's health can deteriorate if their carbohydrate consumption is too low. Therefore, moderate amounts of starchy carbohydrates should still be included in a healthy balanced diet - the suggestions for what to eat at different times of the day give an indication of what amounts are likely to be sufficient for most people.
You may need to study the guidelines a few times, so that you become familiar with the contents, but a little studying will be worthwhile in the long run. At first, you will also find that you have to read the ‘nutrition’ section of a lot of food and drink labels, but after a little while, you’ll only need to check the labels of new items that you want to try, as most of us tend to buy a lot of regular items each week.

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