It can be said that a healthy diet provides the nutrients the body needs to maintain the proper functioning of the body, preserve or restore health, minimize the risk of disease, and ensure reproduction, gestation, lactation, development, and proper growth.

To achieve this, we must know which foods provide the nutrients we really need and which habits we must abandon to protect our health and avoid diseases.

What to do to have a healthy diet?

Healthy eating is based on the principle of balance. That is, healthy eating is synonymous with a balanced diet, in which we include all the essential macronutrients on our plate, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. We must make sure to have all the macros in our diet.

Below we talk about those foods that should be included in our diet:

Fresh fruits

Fruits are an important source of fiber, vitamins, water, minerals, and many other different compounds that bring many health benefits. Consumed daily, fruits help us to prevent different diseases such as cardiovascular problems, digestive disorders, some types of cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as help in the fight against overweight and obesity.

Fruits produce a feeling of satiety because they contain fiber, so you will avoid snacking all day long. In addition, its fiber helps us to regulate intestinal transit and avoid constipation. It is best to have it fresh, but you can also have a frozen fruit smoothie if you get bored or want to try something different with fruits.

Vegetables

Vegetables provide minerals and vitamins that are found in relatively large quantities compared to those obtained from other foods. Green and yellow vegetables occupy the first place as a source of carotene (pro-vitamin A), riboflavin, ascorbic acid, iron, and calcium.

Their daily intake provides vitamins, mineral salts, antioxidants, and fiber; it is also low in calories and favors the elimination of toxins from the body.

We must remember that fruits and vegetables are low in calories, so they help to maintain the ideal weight, they are also a source of fiber, important to regulate bowel function, and help prevent constipation. Finally, fruits and natural fruit juices contain water, potassium, and natural sugars, being a healthy option to replenish fluids and mineral salts.

Calcium-rich foods

You might think of cheese, skim, nonfat, and yogurts. They are all great sources of calcium, protein, and healthy fats and are low in carbs.

As fact, Greek yogurt has a much higher amount of protein than milk and your body will use it to strengthen bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, or hair. It’s also packed with probiotics, healthy bacteria that help boost your immune system, improve your microbiota and alleviate stomach problems.

You could have some greek yogurt with fruit for dessert!

Meats

Animal foods provide all the essential amino acids that your body needs and cannot manufacture. Proteins in the human diet are indispensable for all heterotrophic growth; that is, for the maintenance and replacement of tissues, humans depend on the consumption of other sources of energy generated by other living beings, since they do not produce them themselves.

In addition, animal proteins are highly digestible (94-97%), so from a purely nutritional perspective, it would make no difference whether these proteins come from meat, milk, eggs, or seafood. It is worth noting that fish can be considered the best choice of the species known as white meat, as it is considered essentially pure protein.

If your favorite recipe calls for frying breaded fish or chicken, try healthier variations by baking or broiling. You could swap meat with dried beans if you are in the mood to try something different sometimes. Ask friends and search the Internet and magazines for lower-calorie recipes; you may be surprised to find you have a new favorite dish!

Eggs

Although it contains a small amount of fat, its high contribution of proteins of high biological value, as well as vitamins and minerals, make it worthy of an important place in the regular diet.

They have a very high nutritional value. It contains proteins, vitamins and minerals, and other substances with positive effects on health, in the context of low caloric content (an average-sized egg provides about 70 kcal), so it is generally considered a highly recommended food in the framework of a varied and balanced diet.

Comfort food

Balance means that you don’t have to stop eating the foods you like. You can treat yourself every once in a while with them, and balance it with healthier meals and some exercise.

Some general comfort food tips:

• Consume them less frequently. You can have them once a week, or twice a month, for example.
• Eat smaller portions. If your favorite high-calorie food is a chocolate bar, eat a smaller size or only half a bar.
• Try a lower-calorie version. You can make a cheesecake with yogurt, cream cheese, Splenda, eggs, and sugar-free fruit jelly, for example. No need for sugar, heavy cream, and other caloric ingredients.

What not to do?

Snacks

Snacks are addictive and delicious, and that’s because they are packed with sugar, carbs, and not-so-healthy industrial ingredients. As we said, you can have them every once in a while, but don’t overdo it.

In this group, we have sugary cereals, candies, jelly, chocolates, lollipops, and even canned fruits, as they usually contain a lot of added sugars. You can swap them with dried nuts, natural fruits, sugarless chocolate, protein desserts, and so on.

Salty snacks

We always consider that the salty snacks that we can find in the supermarket are a better alternative than sweet snacks. However, many of them hide poor-quality fats and salt in excess because they are fried and salty.

They are also a source of refined flour and can hide sugar in their composition, so they have an addictive component that encourages us to eat more and more. It is best to avoid commercial snacks and replace them with super-easy homemade snacks or fruit and vegetable chips that are crunchy and very tasty.

Commercial dressings and sauces

They are ultra-processed of low nutritional quality and can hide a lot of sugar inside as well as fats and sodium, therefore, they are not suitable ingredients in a weight loss diet.

Beyond the calories, the important thing is to look at the origin of the calories, because in this case, we can have access to light options but with a large amount of sugar and sodium that do not favor health care or weight loss.

In addition, we can easily replace commercial sauces and dressings with healthier homemade options such as avocado and yogurt sauce, carrot sauce, vegetable pasta sauce, or others.

Soft drinks

We always say that the best drink is water and even more so if we are looking to lose weight since soft drinks have a large amount of sugar and contribute with empty calories.

As if that were not enough, they contain substances with addictive effects on our organism such as caffeine and derivatives. Therefore, there is nothing better than replacing both sugared and sugar-free soft drinks with water, naturally flavored water, or similar, but stay away from industrial beverages.