Diet or what we eat should be planned according to our activity, lifestyle, fitness levels, likes, dislikes and genetics. Contrary to popular belief, healthy eating does not involve eating ugly looking unpalatable veggies. Allow me to correct you – there is no such thing as “ugly looking veggies”. In fact, the color and crispiness of fresh veggies makes them a delight to the palate and our body. But let me not stray from the point I am trying to make, which is:
For a diet to work, you need to personalize it to suit your tastes, body activity level and genes.
While oversimplification and generalization is counter productive, the basic principles of correct eating and healthy lifestyle remain the same irrespective of our individual differences. All food is good. Yes, even the deep fried chicken!
All foods contain vital nutrients which are required by our body. Our body needs nutrients such as carbs, proteins, vitamins, fats, minerals and so on. Depriving our body of some element (as in ‘no fat diet’ or ‘protein diet’), leads to an imbalance. It would be like attempting to drive your car with only fuel and no oil in the engine.
I hate it when some doctors tell their patients that they “need to be brave and lose weight”. What’s there to be brave about losing weight? Hell, you can lose weight by just falling sick – where’s the bravery in that? And before you think I am hinting at something let me tell you, falling sick to lose weight is like wreaking your car to make it work and you know there’s no logic in that.
Eating right or eating correctly not only results in achieving a healthy weight, you also feel good about yourself.
You feel vitalized, full of energy, full of Zen so don’t just treat your car well, treat yourself well too. This brings me to the first step in achieving good health; be committed to eating correctly and exercising. I promise you, everything else will just fall in place. The second step that will lead you towards your goal of good health is: do not deprive yourself of any nutrient or required nourishment. Liquid diets, low carbs, high protein diet, no fat diet, etc. usually work in the very short term but at a price that will literally make your body gasp. In an effort to correct the massive imbalances such diets impose, at the first available opportunity your body will not only regain any lost weight – it will overcompensate and you end up with more weight than when you started with your crash diet.
Your path to good health therefore leads through correct eating, exercising and non-deprivation of any nutrition.
In my next blog I shall write on how you can motivate yourself into making healthy choices.