Living a Healthy Life: Knowing how many intakes your body needs!!

By Lewiser Nkrumah

The public health agency of Canada defines healthy living as the practice of health-enhancing behaviors or living in healthy ways. Most people diet in order to live healthily. Dieting is managing consumption of food and drinks with the intent to lose, gain or maintain weight. People mostly have the thought that dieting is only about losing weight but rather it involves others like gaining weight and maintaining your weight. Slimming dieting on the other hand is depriving or avoidance of certain foods. In order to live healthily, one must know how to balance the food they consume. Nutrients must be taken in the right amounts or proportions. The three key nutrients your body needs in order to function are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. These nutrients work together to provide energy, on-going growth, and repair for the human body to function well. When these nutrients are taken in the right amount and from the right sources, the individual is protected from disease, it also slows down the ageing process, increases vitality as well as longevity. The amount of nutrients required in an individual is dependent on the activeness and age. Research shows that more physically active people live a healthier life than people who live a sedentary life. Research also shows that your body should contain about 30% of FATS, 50% of CARBOHYDRATES, and 25% of PROTEINS.

Proteins are the body’s building blocks that are used in repairing tissues, help to fight infections, and use the extra protein for energy. Individuals tend to stay healthy by dieting using a high protein low-carb diet. This diet can be helpful to some extent due to some researchers but can also be terribly harmful when taken to the extreme. Protein contains nitrogen, which the body converts into ammonia, and then urea, this is excreted by the and it’s a highly acidic process. If the intake of protein is consistently undertaken, the kidney can begin to suffer from the effects of the extra work they need to do. It starts with a backache then to kidney failure.

Your body decides on how much protein to use for muscle growth based purely on how often and how much you use your muscles. If one decides to use a high-protein low-carb diet in order to live healthily or not to gain excess weight, he or she will still gain excess weight and not live healthily. Exercising and challenging your muscles and eating good quality protein such as dairy products, beans, and nuts, your metabolic rate will increase, hence making you live healthily.

Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. Research shows that the body needs about 50% of carbohydrates to function effectively. Fruits, vegetables, dairy, grain food groups, sugar, honey, and syrup all contain carbohydrates. Carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, fat-free and low-fat dairy, and whole grains are healthy to consume rather than added sugars or refined grains. This enables one to live healthily and check your weight if you are worried about it.

Fats on the other hand give energy and help the body absorb certain vitamins. Some fatty acids are essential for the body in order to function and these fatty acids are derived from what we consume. Saturated fats and trans fats can be bad for our health. Saturated fats are found in meat and animal products, including dairy products. Some processed foods such as Pizza, Burger, and Sandwich contain saturated fats. Trans fats occur naturally in some foods but are also artificially produced. Research shows that, fats that contain trans fats and saturated fats are solid at room temperature. One needs to limit the intake of saturated fats to less than 10% of calories each day, and keep trans-fat intake as low as possible in other to live healthily. Replace unhealthy fats with monounsaturated fats which are found in olive, peanut, and sunflower and polyunsaturated fats as well. Polyunsaturated fats can be found in sunflower, corn, soybean, cottonseed oil, oil in fatty fish, walnuts, and some seeds.

Living a healthy lifestyle comes with discipline, commitment, and consistency. You need to eat less fat meat and remove the skin of the chicken before consuming, use low- fat or fat- free dairy products and use olive oil in cooking most of your dishes. You need to exercise and not live a sedentary lifestyle. Being physically active helps build your mind and body. Exercises such as walking, jogging, and skipping can help keep you active. Drink a lot of water in order to stay hydrated at all times. Always remember, that healthy food will lead one to gain weight if you constantly eat more than you need. It’s all about MODERATION AND BALANCE.