Day 4 What is a healthy balanced diet?

The best way to consider what is good for you to eat in your diet is by using a food triangle. The food triangle shows how you should proportion food.

As you can see at the  bottom of the triangle is our life source water, without water you die very quickly. The body should consume about 3ltrs for men and 2.2ltrs for women of water, some of this water you get from the food you eat and that is why you will here the recommended intake of water to be at least 8 glasses of water which equates to just under 2ltrs if you use 8oz glasses. Please remember that although these are recommended amounts, intake will vary from person to person and environment issues as well as work related issues. A woman working on a building site on a hot summers day would need to increase her water intake exponentially.

The next couple of levels of the pyramid are the foods you can consume all the time, as much as you want, when you want. Fruits and vegetables will fill the stomach quicker than other foods of calorific value, meaning you will eat less calories and feel fuller quicker than you will if you ate lean meat for example. 

The danger of the pyramid however is it only deals with whole food groups, there is no section dealing with processed food such as ready meals. The best place for a ready meal is either left on the supermarket shelf, or in the bin. In reality though we eat so much of them because they are quick and easy to make, marketed in some cases as healthy choice, cheap and tasty.

I would place all processed food; thats tinned food, processed meat like spam and cornbeef, frozen meals, ready meals, pizza, burgers, sausages ect into the very top of the triangle, eat these only rarely.

If your serious about getting healthy and loosing weight then you want to be eating fresh and eating as per the recommendations of this triangle.

For more information on a balanced diet go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/22028519