Balanced Diet : Know what it actually means and detailed explanation.

You must have heard health experts or health enthusiasts stressing over balanced diet and it’s importance. But still, several people wonder what actually a balanced diet is and how to get started.

So basically a balanced diet gives your body the nutrients it needs to function properly. In some easy terms, it will give daily requirement calories to your body for functioning. But the thing is, these calories should come from nutrients.

• Know about calories.

Calorie can be defined as the amount of energy that is stored in the food. Human body requires these calories for a living processes like respiration, excretion and many more. While calories are also required for daily functioning like walking, thinking etc.

Several health authorities claimed that an average person requires 2000 calories each day to maintain their weight. But this amount may vary and depend on age, sex, physical activity, level and environment. Moreover, males tend to need more calories than females.

According to health experts and scientists and active male of age between 20-30 years requires 2800-3200 calories each day. These calorie recommendations decrease to 2000 calories per day for active females.

Moreover, the source of your daily calories also plays an important role. There are certain foods that only provide calories with no nutrition and are called empty calorie foods. Most of the times these empty calorie foods include fast foods, junk foods, pizza soda, chips and fries, ice cream etc.

• Importance of balanced diet.

The main motive of a balanced diet is to supply the nutrients to the body. Without balanced nutrition or diet, human body is more prone to diseases, infections, fatigue and low performance.

But if you do not perform physical work and exercise regularly, balanced diet can also promote obesity and fat gain. Most of the times children who do not get enough healthy foods may face growth and development problems. They are more tend to develop unhealthy eating habits from childhood.

• Know what to eat for a balanced diet.

A healthy balanced diet should include macronutrients that include carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats. Moreover, it should also have good reserves of micro nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Most of the times a balanced diet is made up of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy and protein rich animal food. People who are vegan or follow vegetarian diet can focus entirely on plant based protein.

So our healthy diet will always combine all the nutrients and food groups. To ensure that one get all the nutrients in balanced amounts.