Guide to Proper Diet and Nutrition

Usually, when you hear about dieting, you possibly think about half-starving yourself. And if you do, the image has most probably formed a negative notion in your head. What you should know, however, is that proper diet and nutrition do not have to hurt and does not have to be a one-week fad where you have to starve in order to be healthy.

Considering calories

Your diet should depend on what you want to happen. Do you want to lose, gain or just maintain your weight? The amount of calories that you have to take in will depend on your goal and on your height. The shorter you are, the lower calories you have to take in everyday in order to function, and maintain your weight at the same time. This means that you need fewer more when you want to lose and more calories when you want to gain.

Distributing your food

Diet and nutrition, however, is not all about calories. It is also about the quality of foods that you eat. Are you eating healthy or just consuming in empty calories? Those empty calories can add up to make you gain weight, while you are left craving for more than what's good for you. On the other hand, if you want to lose weight you cannot just lower your intake. You still have to check what you put inside your mouth. You can eat lots of food - if you eat more of fruits and vegetables. You can even add in generous, but not ridiculously so, portions of low-fat meats, such as chicken and fish. Dieting does not mean starving at all. You do have to starve yourself of chocolates and other fatty stuff, though a few bits once in a while may serve as a reward.

Balancing your diet

Proper diet and nutrition are also about being able to balance the types of foods you eat. This means that you have to eat a combination of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. While you will be discouraged from eating fatty foods, eating foods with healthy fats is also important. You do have to eat more of your fruits and vegetables for your fiber and multivitamins.Going for health not only weight.

If you eat right, you contribute not only to the energy you need to perform daily tasks, but also to the proper functioning of your body's systems. Eating right is not just about taking away the inches off your waist. There are actually people who weigh more but are healthier. So, you should not just aim to become thin but to be and stay healthy. If you are healthy, your body functions well. However, there is some truth to weight as a basis of health. In this rapid paced world of ours, people often turn to fast foods. These foods pack you up with a lot of empty calories. A cheeseburger can actually pack in four hundred or more calories, depending on the size and how it was cooked.

You do not have to be under nourished and always hungry in order to be healthy. What you do need to make sure of is that you eat more portions of healthy foods. These foods will keep you full for a longer period of time without weighing you down with calories. They will also help your body function as well as can be - both inside and out.

Mindless eating occurs most frequently after dinner, when you finally sit down and relax."Sitting down with a bag of chips or cookies in front of the television is an example of eating amnesia, where you mindlessly eat without being hungry, but out of habit," says American Dietetic Association spokesperson Malena Perdomo, RD.

Either close down the kitchen after a certain hour, or allow yourself a low-calorie snack, like a 100-calorie pack of cookies or a half-cup scoop of low-fat ice cream. Once you find that you're usually satisfied with the low-cal snack, try a cup of zero-calorie tea, suggests Perdomo.