Eating well increases our work capacity, and helps to ward off several types of bodily ailments, and health issues. It provides adequate energy, enhance cognitive functioning, maintains the right body weight and more. A well-balanced diet is the one that has all the vital nutrients in the proper proportion as needed by the body. Let us understand the benefits of eating a well-balanced diet.
Important components of a balanced diet
A well-balanced diet comprise of following key components.
Fats: Fats helps to fill some part of the energy requirement of our body. Healthy sources of fat are homemade butter, nuts, seeds, oil, ghee, and cheese.
Proteins: Protein is needed for building muscles, and repair the damage in the body. It is present in good amounts in lean meat, eggs, pulses, nuts, sprouts, and dairy products etc.
Carbohydrates: Carbs provide fuel to the body. There are good carbs, and bad carbs. Slow digesting complex carbs are considered to be good and foods that gets digested quickly in the body is considered to be bad. Examples of good carbs are unrefined flour, oats, nuts, fruits, etc. Avoid bad carbs that comprise of oily and sugary foods, fried foods, junk foods, processed foods, etc.
Vitamins, Fiber and Minerals: Vitamins, Fiber, and Minerals, are needed to enhance the resistance of the body towards disease. When we get the right amounts of it in our daily diet, we can easily protect ourselves from deficiency diseases that includes Goitre, Anemia, etc.
Benefits of Eating Balanced Diet
Balanced diet benefits your body in following ways:
Control Body Weight: When you eat a healthy diet, you tend to eat less of calorie-dense foods that are low in nutrition. Sticking to healthier varieties of foods, doesn’t cause any calorie increase in the body. This helps in preventing weight gain.
By making low-glycemic foods a part of your well-balanced diet, keeps your body fuller for a longer period of time and prevents frequent eating of unhealthy foods. In this way, a well-balanced diet helps in managing your body weight.
Strengthens your immunity system: When you consume the right amounts of all the vital nutrients, then it helps in boosting your immunity system in the body. Your vascular function is greatly improved. Nutritional deficiencies impair your immunity system function. A diet rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, B-vitamins, Zinc, Iron, and vitamin E promotes the right levels of white blood cells to protect against bacteria, and other infections from infecting the body.
Keeps your heart healthy: There is an important role that a balanced diet helps in reducing the chances of developing heart ailments in the body. With the right consumption of Vitamin C, good cholesterol (or the HDL) increases, low density cholesterol (or LDL) reduces and blood pressure is normalized.
Vitamin C, and omega 3 essential fatty acids prevent fat from getting transformed into plaque in the arteries. A balanced diet reduces excess body fat that puts excessive stress on the heart that eventually leads to serious diseases.
Boosts Energy: We get energy from the food that we eat. Nutrient-dense foods takes longer to digest and gets released slowly into the body system. This helps us to get continuous flow of energy at periodic intervals of time. It also helps in preventing any sudden increase in blood sugar in blood levels. Proteins keeps us satiated and aids in burning of fat. Fruits, and healthy fats offer good amount of energy throughout the day. Leafy green has iron that helps in transfer of oxygen to all parts of the body, and keeps us energetic.
Improves digestion: Poor and unhealthy eating habits cause digestive, and stomach issues due to the development of harmful toxins in the body. Unrefined flour, fruits, veggies, and fiber rich low processed fruits keeps your digestion system healthy. We tend to metabolize food faster. A person who eats balanced diet is less susceptible to digestive issues.
More Brain Power: Foods that are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids such as salmon, avocado, kiwi, and walnuts are important inclusions of a well-balanced diet. Eating foods that contain these important fatty acids keep your brain healthy and functional. It improves memory, learning ability, prevent mental disorders etc.
Conclusion
Balance is needed in all the things that we do throughout the day. Just like sleep, work, play, balance is also needed in the diet we consume. A balanced diet is the one that comprise of all the nutrients that our body requires on a daily basis in adequate amounts.
When designing a balanced diet, it is important to look at various factors such as age, gender, and present health of the person. It will help you determine the right nutritional requirement for a sound mental, and physical health and proper growth of the body.