Tips, Ideas and Nutrition Information
for Healthful and Sustainable Living
With Amira Elgan
Take charge of your health -- and your life -- and find out what it really means to be healthy.
I will provide useful, practical and empowering information about health, nutrition and organic living that will put you in control of your own well-being.
Eating a healthy, well-balanced diet will give you the energy to live an active and productive lifestyle. Health is the foundation to a long and happy life.
Get healthy now!
Finding Your Perfect Diet:
A Matter of HealthWhat's the perfect diet? It's a controversial subject. But given our individual lifestyles and genetic makeup, it is not possible to come up with one diet plan that's perfect for everyone. Even the dietary needs of a single person are likely to change constantly throughout his or her lifetime.
Food (specifically, the substances contained in food) is the foundation of health - good or bad.
Although the effects vary from person to person, what we eat, when we eat, how much we eat and how we prepare what we eat have immediate and long-term effects in our bodies and health.
The short-term effects of high-cholesterol and high-saturated-fatty food, for example, can make some people feel sluggish, tired and bloated, and cause digestive problems and constipation.
The long-term effects can include dramatically increased weight and risk of chronic illness -- including the nation's biggest killers: heart disease, certain cancers and diabetes. While it is possible for some people to not experience any of this (though not likely), others are genetically predisposed for certain food allergies and other ailments.
Junk food, loaded with saturated fats, cholesterol, refined sugars, hormones, pesticides, and other additives coupled with a sedentary lifestyle cause most of the health problems in the United States.
The most obvious consequence of consuming high-fat, empty-calorie food is weight gain. Other diet related health problems (often exacerbated by obesity) increasing at an alarming rate are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and certain cancers including breast, prostate and colon cancer.
Our environment (the place we live, climate, amount of sun we get, types of food available) our religion, culture, ethics, jobs, economical means, etc., all contribute to our decision making process about what we eat. The food available to each of us, and the circumstances that surround us, influence the choices we make about our diets.
Though one person's "perfect" diet might be totally different from another, there are certain facts that hold true for everybody. Nutrition and diet are the basic underlying elements of our well-being. Nourishing our bodies with a basic healthful diet begins with the understanding that we need proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and water. These dietary elements have a qualitative dimension - there are good proteins and bad, good carbs and bad, good fats and bad, and so on. Toxins, including pesticides and other harmful poisons introduced in the production of some foods, are unhealthful.
There are always choices we make when we eat that help or hurt our bodies. For instance, well-balanced vegetarian and vegan diets consisting of organic, wholesome foods that include a daily intake of several servings of diverse vegetables and colorful fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds can easily provide complete and adequate protein and all the nutrients the body needs for optimum health.
Having an educated understanding of basic nutrition is the first step to taking charge of your health in your quest for wellness and longevity. The most important common element we all need to apply is acquiring knowledge about how to provide our bodies with the right nutrients eating the right diet.
Awareness about what we choose to put in our bodies is the best tool in finding the ideal eating plan-understanding what food is, what nutrients it provides, how your body reacts to it, how it affects your health and even how it's metabolized.
Healthy, well-balanced nutrition and adequate exercise can lead you to looking and feeling great, maintaining a healthy weight, lowering the risk of chronic illnesses and living a longer life.
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