#BEATTHEBELLY Daily Tip - What is a Balanced Diet?

You are a typical guy.

You eat mainly meat and carbs and sometimes a few veg on the side.

You eat cheese in a burger or sandwich and eggs in a fry up.

You grab the odd piece of fruit and think you can get 5 a day from drinking a whole carton of orange juice..

So you like the idea of this BEATTHEBELLY thing and you're on a fitness drive so you start looking into diets: there is a bewildering variety of options out there from the Acai berry supplement diet with bowel cleanser (a.k.a caffeine fuelled vitamin C boost bowel explosion diet) to the Atkins "just eat meat and cheese" and get a neck like a bull diet.

Diet is something we all have to intake every day of our life, so essentially we are all on a diet all the time, but sometimes we tighten up and focus on certain foods.

How do you make sure you're getting a balanced diet?
Lets focus on a typical Western or developed world diet.

You need

Protein to build muscles - from meat, fish, eggs, cheese and some beans

Carbohydrates for energy - from starchy foods like rice, pasta, potatoe, bread.

Fats for cell repair and storage - from dairy and animal fats or plant oils

Fruit and Vegetables - for sugars and fibre and some vitamins

Vitamins and Minerals for health - for immune systems and creating special tissues

These elements need to be in proportion to use and need within your body. If you eat too much of any one you risk health problems.

Take a look at the healthy eating plate and consider the proportions of dairy in your diet to the amount of vegetables for example.

A western diet is often dairy and carb heavy, while more developing world diets and traditional diets would contain more starchy foods and vegetables with smaller portions of expensive meat and dairy cheeses. Meat and dairy products have become so relatively cheap to mass produce with modern methods that we are eating too much of them.

Fibre from vegetables is cruicial to keeping the bowels regular and is thought to decrease the risk of bowel cancer from toxic wastes hanging around in the guts.

If you eat more than 2 portions of red meat a week you are at higher risk of bowel cancer for the same reason.

Too much animal fat in the diet can furr up the arteries in the heart, brain and other key organs resulting in heart attacks, angina and strokes.

Carrying too much weight around the tummy and eating too much sugary food can lead to diabetes with disasterous consequences on the whole system.

New evidence suggests that artifical sweeteners may even CAUSE diabetes, so best to not just swap to diet cola but cut out the coca-cola altogether.

If you are making a diet plan try to keep things in proportion to diet safely.

Next week we will talk about portions.









Dr Ben Sinclair
Sinclair Health Limited
07403110640
https://www.optimiseclinic.co.uk
Twitter: @menshealthtips
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