Our food choices define our health. Our eating habits are not only for today but they are for a long run as well. If we are relying on junk today, then we should make ourselves ready for the ruined health consequently. Good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle. In combination with physical activity, your diet can help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight it also significantly reduces the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer and promote your overall health. Today, in this article we will be talking about a world famous and miraculously beneficial diet; Keto Diet, but before we probe all about this diet let us first discuss why a nutritious diet is significant for us and if a proper food intake is observed how it dwindles our health.
Adopting healthy diet is not very difficult, healthy eating includes the intake of proteins that are of high quality, carbohydrates, fats that are good for heart i.e. omega 3, vitamins, mineral, fibers and water (8 glasses or more daily). Including these foods will help you boost your health while foods that should be minimized are processed foods, saturated fats, alcohol, sugary foods, and synthetic foods. Intake of food in this manner helps you maintain your body’s everyday functions, promotes optimal body weight and can assist in disease prevention. A healthy diet doesn’t only involve the proper intake of food, it also involves the right number of calories to be taken daily to prevent obesity or underweight issues, and it also requires refraining ourselves from habits like smoking, alcohol consumption, no exercise or little and irregular sleeping pattern.
Our health should be our priority; our body is like a machine if its mechanics and engine are in perfect order then the machine will effectively function.
The significance of nutritious diet
The perils for chronic diseases in adults, such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, are increasingly being observed at an earlier age, often associated with unhealthy eating habits and weight gain. Dietary habits established in childhood often lead to adulthood, so teaching children to eat healthy at an early age will help them stay healthy throughout their lives.
There is an important link between good nutrition and a healthy weight, reducing the risk of chronic diseases and overall health is too important to be ignored. By taking steps to eat healthily, you’ll be well on your way to getting the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy, active and strong
Few steps that could be taken to improve health:
Balanced diet
A balanced diet is required to let our body function correctly, it involves the intake of
- fresh fruits and fresh vegetables
- whole grains
- legumes
- nuts
- lean proteins
- And food rich in fibers.
However, average calorie intake for an individual is 2000 Kcal daily but this parameter depends on gender, age, health condition and daily physical activity. Increasing your calorie intake above 2000 could be harmful, while less than 500-800 calories will be harmful as well because our body will become deficient of important nutrient required to function accurately. Why dietitians pay emphasis on a balanced diet is because of it important for your organs and tissues. Our body needs adequate nutrition to function effectively. Without good nutrition, your body is more prone to disease, infection, weariness and a decline in performance could be seen. Children with poor diets are at risk of developing and having developmental problems and poor school performance, and poor eating habits may persist for the rest of their lives.
Risks of unhealthy eating habits i.e. improper diet
Poor nutrition is caused by not eating properly either eating too much or not eating at all. According to professional dietitians around the world, it is strictly not permissible to take a lot of calories without doing any workout or to starve yourself in the name of dieting. Poor diet is also associated with eating food that is oily, fat full or consumption of sodas i.e. carbonated drinks or energy drinks, all these fluids are rich in sugar which has a huge negative impact on liver and kidneys. Even eating raw foods lead to the lower performance of body like the medium rare steak we eat, have blood dripping from it and are raw from the center which is being indicated as unhygienic. Also doing a bare minimum physical activity or simply just sitting at home hoping that calories would miraculously be burnt all these conditions lead towards worse circumstances.
Putting in a nutshell, poor nutrition contributes towards stress, tiredness and decreases our capacity to work, and over time, it can contribute to the risk of developing some illnesses and other health problems such as:
- being overweight or obese
- oral problems i.e. tooth decay or improper growth of teeth
- high blood pressure
- high cholesterol
- heart disease and stroke
- type-2 diabetes
- osteoporosis
- cancers
- depression
- Eating disorders.
- Indigestion issues
How to improve nutrition?
As we have talked about how diet has a huge impact on us, it is important to select a diet that matches your objectives of health. There are few popular diets, some of them are for losing weight, some are for gaining some are for enhancing the strength of body etc. few of these diets are:
- Atkins diet.
- The Zone diets.
- Ketogenic diet.
- Vegetarian diet.
- Vegan diet.
- Weight Watchers diet.
- South Beach diet.
- Raw food diet.
Keto recipes:
You may have some misconception about keto diet that you will eat boring or bland food. Well, the ketogenic diet isn’t boring like other diets. Yet it includes simple staple foods but there are many ways to make them exciting. Which are even simple to make and has no long execution or preparations? Let’s get started
Recipe for breakfast:
Roll-ups:
These breakfast roll-ups are simply made up of eggs stuffed with bacon or sausages, and cheddar cheese inside this roll-ups. An ultimate keto fast-food. These are super easy to make, takes no time and you can store them in the fridge. Plus, they are low-carb because it includes no tortillas. They are simple egg roll-ups.
Preparation:
Eggs about 5-10
Spices (includes salt, pepper, chilies or any other spice you can add)
5 sausages or 5 slices of bacon
1.5 cups of cheddar cheese
Execution:
Simple preheat your non-stick pan and put it on a medium then take 2 eggs and whisk them add spices. Then put whisked eggs on your pan and cover it up. Add some cheddar cheese and lay down sausages and bacon on the top and carefully fold like a roll and repeat the process.
Recipe for lunch:
Keto pesto chicken pasta:
This lunch recipe is simply delicious, it includes the combination of fragrant basil, with salty parmesan, lemon all together in a pesto dish. Also, with zucchini noodles with complementary juicy chicken breast and last with baked tomatoes that make a whole dish mouth watery.
Preparation:
2 bones less medium chicken breasts
Olive oil
10 cherry tomatoes
2 medium zucchinis
Last up with fresh basils
For pesto, you will need 1 cup basil, walnuts, parmesan, and olive oil, salt up to taste and lemon juice.
Execution:
Starting with chicken, take chicken breast season them with spices then bake them for 15 minutes.
Then take them out and put them again with tomatoes, meanwhile make a pesto paste by mixing all the ingredients as mentioned above. Then make zucchini pasta and sauté it about for 3 minutes.
Last assemble your dish by placing pesto zucchini with topping them with chicken, baked tomatoes, and fresh basil as for garnishing.
Recipe for dinner:
Glazed chicken with five spices:
This roasted glazed chicken dish is delicious. It includes five spices which are cloves, cinnamon, star anise, pepper, and last with fennel. Served with cauliflower fried rice.
Preparations:
You will need 1 whole chicken
1/3 cup of soya sauce
6 slices of ginger
1 teaspoon of 5 spices powder and last with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup.
Execution:
First, take a Ziploc bag and add all the sauces and spices then put the whole chicken into the bag, marinade the chicken and leave it for a night. Then when it’s time for dinner before that bakes chicken about for an hour at 350 degrees. After checking chicken has been cooked well serve it with cauliflower and enjoy your diet dinner.
Benefits of keto diet:
Keto diet may sound like other low carbs diet but it’s different and gives you more benefits than you think.
lose weight and turn you slim smart:
Keto diet makes your body turning into a fat-burning machine. According to many diet specialists they consider keto diet more effective for weight loss as compared to other low-carb diets.
Control blood sugar:
Keto also controls your blood sugar levels and is effective for reversing type 2 diabetes. It helps in lowering your blood sugar level and reduces chances of the negative impact of high insulin levels.
Epilepsy:
Keto diet has proven that it is effective medical therapy for epilepsy. For all those who have epilepsy problem, the ketogenic diet can allow them to take less or no anti-epilepsy drugs. This will ultimately result in a proper mental performance and boost their energy level.
Conclusion:
Putting up all together there are other benefits too of a ketogenic diet. It has proven by many diet specialists. It has unique effects on your body and inside your cells that results in beneficial. As a restriction of carbohydrate reduces the production of insulin levels, triggers your autophagy (cellular clean-up), increases your mitochondrial production and its efficiency and reduces inflammation and last burns out your fat.
Before doing ketogenic diet make sure you consult you a therapist, diet specialist or doctor for your own good. Make your life healthy and enjoy your life.
Khalid Irfan is a Fitness expert who enjoys spending time in gym. He also enjoys being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise as well as researching new topics to expand his horizons.
