Nutrition Tips for Improving Your Health

21st April 2023

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Food is fuel. There is a direct correlation between what you eat and how you feel, and how your body performs.

Eating a healthy, nutritional diet aids digestion, improves health, boosts mood, and keeps your body working optimally.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet and regular exercise are the keys to a healthy lifestyle.

Healthy eating is all about balance.

Here are some nutrition tips to improve your health and keep you feeling fit and well.

1. Focus on nutrient dense food

The majority of the food that you eat should be made of fresh, nutrient dense food.

Processed foods can be stripped of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. The body can find it difficult to digest processed food.

Protein

Benefits of protein:

Build and repair muscles
Source of energy
Helps you feel full for longer
Helps preserve muscles and strength as you age
Helps us recover after illness or injury

Try to spread your protein consumption throughout the day, ideally including protein in each of your meals throughout the day. Great sources of lean protein include yogurt, white fleshed fish, chicken, turkey, beans, peas and lentils

Carbohydrates

Benefits of carbohydrates:

Source of energy
Helps to regulate blood sugar levels
Helps the digestive system
Allows the body to avoid using protein as an energy source which leaves it for other bodily functions such as growth and repair

Whole grains contain nutrients such as iron, fibre and vitamin B. Focus on complex carbohydrates that the body burns slowly. These include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pules (beans, lentils, chick peas), nuts, seeds, milk and yogurt.

Nutrition tip: Focus on nutrient dense food

2. Drink more water

Drinking enough water can help with weight management and overall health. Drinking plenty of water can prevent dehydration and the many symptoms of it.

Water is essential for every physiological function in your body and is important for optimal health.

3. Reduce sugar intake

High sugar intake increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, weight gain, and tooth decay and cavities.

As your blood sugar level increases, your body releases insulin, which is a hormone responsible for storing excess sugar (glucose) from the blood. If this glucose is not used for energy, your body will store it as fat.

4. Eat more vegetables

Fruits and vegetables of different colours provide a wide variety of antioxidants beneficial to your health. Strive to eat the rainbow each day.

5. Read food labels

The fine print on food labels can tell you important nutritional information about the food you are about to eat.

A few of the things to look out for include:

Saturated fat
Salt content
Recommended portion size

-Being aware of portion sizes can help manage your weight and can help encourage appropriate consumption

There is a place for all food in your diet. Restrictive eating can put a person under intense pressure to make perfect food choices based on a list of eating and food ‘rules’. This can leave them feeling deprived and craving foods that they enjoy. Perfection is not attainable in most real-world situations, so why expect it of a diet?

Find out how restrictive diets can negatively affect your health in the long run in this blog.

restrictive eating pitfalls