What nutrients you are in deficiency

There are many advocations of dietary style supported with cultural philosophies or environmental concerns. Any of these could be a guideline to achieve your health and weight goals. For someone who has medically related issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, eating disorders, seeing registered dietitian for consultation is highly recommended. Professional dietitian will educate the clients on the overview of balanced diet and look into your deficiencies. Clinical assessments such as blood test, or urine test may be needed.

Another simpler and reliable reference is the dietary guidelines recommended by the international authority and government in your regions such as the British or the U.S. Dietary Guidelines . A well-balanced diet gives the energy and nutrients that you need. In the US, the National Weight Control Registry is a large, often-cited study of individuals who were successful at long-term maintenance of weight loss. It showed that the people who are most successful at weight loss were eating a diet that was roughly 20 percent protein, 25 percent fat, and 50 percent carbs. This is a diet recommended by almost all behavioral weight-loss programs.

One of the resources that I found user-friendly and easy to understand is the strategy of “choose my plate” engineered by United States of DMyPlateepartment of Agriculture. The idea is simply including all food type in good proportion in one plate. Let the vegetables, fruits and legumes portions take up at least half of the plate and leaving a small corner to the meat, poultry, pork or seafood.

The quality of food is as important as eating the right portions. To choose real food in priority. Nutrients can be obtained in natural form by eating whole foods including a variety of fruit, vegetables, grains and proteins, to give the body an array of vitamins, minerals, fiber and other phytonutrients.

As long as whole foods form the basis for daily diet, opt for processed food in minor portion. Packaged processed food took us less time to prepare and store longer but it takes more time to check out the nutritional value to caution for excessive amounts of sodium, sugar or additive. The “healthy”, “natural” or “less sodium” label on the package is not the information you should rely on. Pick wisely by reading the nutrition labels yourself.

There is no food you should not eat. But pay more attention on what nutritious food you are not eating. Do not deprive the body of crucial nutrients. If you have nutrients-dense food fill up your plate, then little room is left to eat the food that is least wanted by your body. Keep a Food journal if you want to start a healthier eating habit. It is a record of nutritional value of the food you eat. It provides solid information that helps to identify what nutrients and how much more you are in need of.