Many people daily propose to start Eat Healthy. To do this, they begin to search on internet pages which foods they should include in their diets and in what proportions they should do so. In a short time they go from eating ultra-processed food and eating several times a week in restaurants to eating only chicken breast and salads. After a few weeks they automatically stop the diet since they cannot continue with that rhythm of life. This is where the biggest failures in correct nutrition reside.
Therefore, we are going to dedicate this article to indicate how you should eat healthy and what guidelines you should follow to maintain good adherence.
What is healthy eating
The first thing we must understand when starting to eat healthy is that There is no magic food with special properties that by itself makes you lose weight or gain weight. There are a number of factors to take into account when establishing your diet. First of all and most important is the energy balance. Normally the people who decide to eat healthy or go on a diet are those who are slightly overweight to obese.
These people need to reduce their fat percentage to healthy levels. To do this, they begin to introduce real, unprocessed foods and large amounts of vegetables into their diet. For all practical purposes this is a very loosely adherent diet. That is, over time, without being used to eating a certain amount and types of food, you will not be able to follow the plan for a long time. This type of strict nutrition leads you to think that you are only going to comply with it for a while and then return to your normal habits.
This is where the failure of most people lies. It is thought that eating healthy is a matter of time until you lose weight and look better aesthetically. Once this goal is achieved, they revert to previous habits of malnutrition and lack of physical exercise. To avoid all these mistakes, various factors must be taken into account when starting to eat healthy.
Main factors for healthy eating
Energy balance
There are numerous variables that must be taken into account to start eating healthy. Depending on our objective, be it aesthetics or health, we must know the energy balance of our diet. The energy balance is the amount of calories that we must infer at the end of the day or after the weeks to be able to establish a goal. If we want to lose weight we must have a caloric deficit in the diet. That is, eating fewer calories than we can burn through our basal metabolism, physical activity and our daily activity.
On the other hand, if we want to increase our weight, mainly by an increase in muscle mass, we must introduce a caloric surplus in the diet. This means eating more calories than is expended. This section has many nuances when establishing a diet. It all depends on the ideal person's basal metabolic rate. In addition, the amount of muscle mass that a person has is decisive when establishing the number of calories that should be ingested daily.
Macronutrients
Another fundamental aspect that must be analyzed when starting to eat healthy is the amount of macronutrients found in the diet. The macronutrients are: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. These 3 macronutrients are the key to the diet. Adequate amounts must be established for the objective of each one. You have to know that no type of diet should do without any of these nutrients. A common misconduct is to eliminate carbohydrates or fats in weight loss diets.
No lieutenant should disappear from a nutritional guideline. All are important. Carbohydrates give us the energy to face our day to day, fats act in various metabolic functions and proteins help to preserve muscle mass, repair tissues and provide satiety in the diet.
Micronutrients
Micronutrients are another important factor when creating a diet. The order of importance can more the macronutrients since they are in a greater quantity. As the name suggests, micronutrients are found in quantities. Milligram to microgram amounts. These micronutrients include the vitamins and minerals present in food.
Many of these minerals and vitamins are necessary for various metabolic functions and regulation of the immune system. Thanks to these micronutrients we can be healthy at all times. However, due to the very small amount of micronutrients that we need, there is no need to obsess over it. Contain a varied diet that includes vegetables, fruits, vegetables, legumes, dairy, meat, fish, nuts, etc. It will be full of micronutrients.
Eat healthy and adherence
There is nothing more important from all the above points than adherence. This is about how easy it is to follow the eating plan. It's no use having the best diet in the world if you can't follow it. It is important that your diet does not cost you to do it daily. You should not include foods that you do not like in the simple fact that they are healthy or have a large amount of vitamins or minerals.
There is no type of food that by itself is essential in any eating plan. Therefore, we must make a selection of foods that provide us with a large amount of nutrients but that do not cost us to eat. In addition, we must be flexible in the diet. The ideal is to have 80% from real food, not processed and that comes from large food sources and the other 20% from some whim or more processed food. In this way, we can have a motivation when it comes to following the diet without too many restrictions.
The important thing is to maintain long-term adherence to the diet. It is about creating healthy habits and not just going on a diet for a while and returning to previous habits.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about what it is to eat healthy.