You Are What You Eat

“You Are What You Eat”

Diet (Oxford Dictionary)

1 the kinds of food that a person, animal or community habitually eats. 2 a special course of food to which a person restricts themselves to lose weight or for health reasons.

Definitions of the word Diet

Usual food and drink of a person or animal.

A regulated selection of foods, for medical or cosmetic weight loss.

Of or relating to a food regimen designed to promote weight loss in an animal or person.

A specific allowance for selection of food, especially prescribed to control weight or in disorders in which certain foods are contraindicated.

A diet is the food that people consume on a daily basis. This could be healthy or unhealthy, full or goodness or full of empty, fat-laden calories. One person’s diet may consist of chips, pies and pizza and another persons maybe brown rice, chicken and fruit. They are still both diets.

People misconceive a diet to be something restrictive that means they have to deprive themselves of certain foods or food groups. A healthy balanced diet is something to be enjoyed and relished, to make you feel great on the inside and out, and something that ,can be followed for life.

In this day and age it is very easy to slip into eating the wrong types of food. People are working longer hours, and at the end of a hard day at work the last thing they want to do is start cooking something nutritious and healthy when they could pick up a takeaway on the way home or just grab something out the freezer put it in the microwave – and in a few minutes “ping” dinner is served!  Convenience foods are so readily available and so tempting to consume. They do save time and energy in the preparation, but the majority of these convenience foods are loaded with saturated fats, sugar, refined carbohydrates and additives, all of which your body in the long term will not thank you for.

The body is like a car. A car needs fuel to work and run efficiently, if you poured the wrong type of fuel into the car what would happen? It would break down, stop working and need to be fixed.

Same with the body, if you keep pouring saturated fats, refined sugars and processed foods into the body. It puts stress on it, it has to work harder to digest the “bad” foods that are being consumed, and eventually will also break down and need to be fixed. This can be done by a change of diet and lifestyle, but if the person ignores the warning signs of their bad habits they will be putting themselves at risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity.

Over the years there have been hundreds of different diets that at the time have been said to promote weight loss, health and general well being. The problem is that the advice given through the media whether on TV, radio or in the press is very confusing for most people. One week its great to eat carbohydrates. They are low in fat, keep you full and give you energy. The next week the same magazine is telling you not to eat carbohydrates, to cut this food group out completely! So what is a healthy diet?

A healthy diet is something that can be followed for life, it’s not a fad or a two-week starvation diet, it’s not a “lets cut out all carbohydrates” or a “lets just eat protein for a month” diet. It is definitely not a “lets buy these shakes or pills from whatever pyramid marketing company has befriended us on Facebook”. A healthy diet is something that will make you feel good on the inside and out.

It is a diet that is well balanced that is full of whole grains, good fats, fresh ripe fruits, lean meats, fresh fish and colourful vegetables. A good diet is full of variety so that the body is getting the optimum vitamins, minerals and nutrients that occur naturally in good foods.

Diet is a way of life for everyone, we all have to eat to stay alive and have the energy to carry out our day to day lives. If people started to see a healthy diet plan as something to be embraced instead of something that will stop them from eating or drinking what they want , there would be a lot less obese and unhealthy people in the world. Everyone has choices in life, to eat the good food or the bad foods, people that eat the bad foods will generally feel lower in energy, maybe have a more negative frame of mind, feel lethargic and run down and might be more susceptible to catching illnesses. People that choose the good will generally have more energy, be more positive, enjoy better health and general well being and feel good inside and out.

A healthy lifestyle is not rocket science. Deep down most people know that eating pizza, chips and full fat coke everyday isn’t going to be helping them, but generally most people don’t do anything about it until they start to experience the symptoms of being overweight.

A body that is getting the correct fuel, will run efficiently, will be full of energy, and will cut the risk of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and other degenerative diseases that are associated with weight and the type of foods people eat.

What more of an incentive could people require to start eating correctly? At the end of the day you are what you eat.