Healthy Eating and You

Whether it’s intermittent fasting with the 5:2 diet, or eating like a caveman with the paleo diet, there’s no shortage of trendy new eating fads out there. You can’t open a magazine without reading about the next miracle weight loss program. Inundated with all of these supposedly amazing diets, it can be damn-near impossible to choose one that’s right for you, and once you do they’re often difficult to maintain and can have questionable results. Since a lot of these diets cut out key foods, they can also deprive you of essential nutrients and can cause a number of nasty side-effects you really don’t want to have to deal with.

However, if you are considering one of these fad diets, you should absolutely read the Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) first. It is quite long so I don’t blame you if you’d rather just skim the summary. Either way, contained in the report is just about everything you will need to know about what constitutes a healthy and nutritious diet according to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

If government reports aren’t really your thing though, then here’s what you need to know: there is no “secret miracle diet” that will keep you healthy or help you lose weight. In the majority of cases, the best diet for you is one that incorporates a variety of foods from each of the key foods groups. Of course, there are some medical conditions that require special diets, in these cases it’s definitely best to follow your doctor’s recommendations.

Unfortunately for the average Australian, our diets are pretty poor. We seem to be a bit mixed up, eating too much of the foods we shouldn’t be eating, and not eating enough of the foods we should. According to the National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (NNPAS), we’re eating too much of the foods that would usually fit into the “sometimes” category near the top of that healthy eating pyramid, these are energy-dense foods high in saturated/trans-fats with added sugar or salt.

While these foods do taste great, there’s a reason the pyramid doesn’t have a section devoted to junk food. Eating too much of these foods can put us at risk of developing problems with our hearts and circulatory systems.

So if you’re looking to improve your diet, don’t just jump on the fad diet bandwagon. Make the healthy choice and simply combine a balanced diet with some regular physical activity. Your body will thank you.