Finding the Right Diet for You

Finding the Right Diet for You

When it comes to your health, the person you should listen to the most will, and always will be, your body. This doesn’t just mean listening to it when you are hungry. It means analyzing how you feel and how you perform throughout the day. Feeling sluggish, lethargic, tired, or weak are all signs you need to change your diet. Unhealthy skin, dull looking hair, and other beauty woes are also signs your diet might not be doing as much for you as it could be.

Our body will only take what it needs, and it stores the rest or simply lets it pass through. Take iodine, for example. Iodine is a mineral that your body needs to make thyroid hormones. If you were to put a drop of iodine on your skin, your body will either absorb it or not, depending on whether you need it. It is an amazing biological wonder, but there is only so much it can do when you don’t feed it what it needs, and, chances are, you aren’t.

It can be very difficult to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet when you don’t understand what nutrition is and how it can affect you, which is why you should follow this simple guide to help you get started:

The Macronutrients

To start, we have the macronutrients fat, protein, and carbohydrates. These are the nutrients that feed our bodies and give them the energy to function. Without these nutrients, we effectively starve, and as such as the most necessary in many cases for survival. Many people, however, assume that by cutting out some of the three main macronutrients they can lose weight more effectively, when, rather than deprive yourself of one macronutrient, it’s better to simply find healthier alternatives.

That being said there are many different diets out there that emphasize one macronutrient over the other. The ketogenic diet is, in fact, famous for this. Only, rather than overemphasizing protein like many people do when they want to lose weight, the ketogenic diet emphasizes the fat intake. This is because when you consume carbohydrates, your body produces glucose, which is the easiest and simplest form of energy your body can use as fuel. When you starve your body of carbohydrates (but not starve your body entirely), your liver will instead release ketones as it enters a state of ketosis. Want more information about keto diet? See this helpful guide from Groom & Style.

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Ketones in the diet encourage the body to use fat as the main source of energy. It has obvious weight-loss potential, but the benefits do go further than that from controlled blood sugar to increased energy and to even help reduce epilepsy. The key part of this diet is that you need to remain consistent, which is why many people prefer to have their ketogenic meals delivered. That way you can stay in the ketosis state and maintain all the benefits from your ketogenic diet.

There are also other variants of this diet as well. There are ones that emphasize protein intake, for example, or ones that try to starve the body of all three. There is no one solution that will work for everyone because everything from genetics to environment to lifestyle will affect what your body needs.

The Essential Vitamins

There are thirteen essential vitamins. They are essential because they are all necessary for your body to function, for example, Vitamin B, which comes in many forms (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12), helps support the body’s most basic functions. Most of the vitamin B variants help your body convert the food you eat into energy and are also beneficial for more beautiful hair, clearer skin, stronger muscles, and improved brain function. B6 and B12 help you sleep, help in the production of red blood cells, and also help improve immune function.

Each vitamin has its own benefits, and your body needs all thirteen to survive. Of course, these are the essential vitamins. Your body will also require minerals.

Minerals

There are a few minerals that everyone knows. These are the superstar of the mineral world and are necessary for healthy bones and bodies. Calcium and iron are often the most talked about, and, in many cases, the easiest to include in our diet. Other important minerals, however, include chloride, chromium, copper, fluoride, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, sodium, sulfur, and zinc.

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Minerals work to help support your body just as much as vitamins do, and, like vitamins, can help prevent disorders and diseases from developing.

Finding the Healthy Balance

Your body will, for the most part, absorb what it needs and either store or pass on the rest. That being said, however, with vitamin supplements, it is very possible to now overdose on vitamins and minerals. This can lead to your body breaking down. An overdose of vitamin A, for instance, can cause your bones to start to break down. On the other hand, a deficiency in a vitamin can be just as catastrophic to your health. A Vitamin B12 deficiency (which many people, and especially vegetarians and vegans as this vitamin is found predominately in animal products) can lead to dementia and other neurological disorders like memory loss.

How to Support Your New Diet

Once you have found the healthy medium that works for you, you need to support it. It means drinking more water to help you stay hydrated and to help improve your metabolism. Water is the best way to stay hydrated as it can also help your body flush toxins and remain healthy, alert, and energized.

Other ways you should support your new and healthy diet is by exercising. You don’t need to sign up to a gym to do this, but do try to get at least thirty minutes of exercise in every day. It could mean jogging in the morning, or dancing when you get home. Even walking more or taking the stairs at work can have a positive impact.

When you start your new diet, you need to remember that it will be hard. Your body will not like being forced to change from its current state, but for your health, it needs to be done. Stick to it and use a meal service plan to help you start out and stay healthy.