A Good Diet – The Basics You Should Know

What is a good diet?

Does this mean a healthy diet or is it a diet on which you maintain your body weight?

None of these can actually define a good diet; yes, it has to be a healthy diet because everything should be healthy, but is it possible in an imperfect world? What about the other question? A good diet is not a diet on which you stay fit; a good diet is a diet that applies to your needs and plans. Say you want to gain muscle mass, then a good diet for you would be one that would help you do so. Now that we’ve established all of this everyone can choose what they want and from that point change their diet in such a way.

Nutritionally speaking, a good diet contains:

–  10-20% proteins (or rather 0,7g of protein for each kg of your body) such as from meat, eggs, mushrooms;

–  30-50% carbohydrates or sugars such as those you get from vegetables; fruit and 20-30% fat which you can get from cheese, milk, eggs, nuts and oils and vitamins and minerals in order to assure a good assimilation of all these nutrients.

Of course, these are just statistics; you can eat so and get fat at any time. Having these basic principals we have to move onward to the way we eat, when, how much and how we combine these nutrients.

First of all, we should start with the way in which we combine these nutrients: as a basic principle you should never have both fat and sugar (carbohydrates) in the same meal. The reason behind this s very simple: insulin is an anabolic hormone required for the absorption of sugars, therefore all of the remaining fat content will be stored on your bodies as fat because the energy needs will be covered by the easier to absorb sugars. So, a general meal should look like: proteins + sugar, protein + fat and never sugar + fat.

When do we eat all of these nutrients? The entire quantity of nutrients should be split in as many meals as possible, preferably 4 to 6. Why? If the amount you eat is small and moderate your body has more time to absorb it. Even more, the entire volume of your digestive system will decrease because of the low amounts and your metabolism will increase. As general idea you should start the day with breakfast where you should have about 30% of all your calories.

How much? Nowadays it is considered that you should eat around 2000kcal, but that is not true at all. That is as much a random number as any other. The amount of calories you ingest should be determined by:

– your weight
– your sex
– your muscle mass
– your metabolism
– your daily activities.

In order to find out the amount of calories you need to eat you should see a nutritionist or simply use an online calculator for a general idea.