In nutrition, the diet is the total amount of food ingested by an animal or human being. Diet is defined as the collection of foods on which the body relies for energy. The types of diet that one should adopt may depend on the type of body that he/she has. Some people may have a very fast metabolism that requires a lot of food to be digested in a short period of time. Others have a slower metabolism that needs more nutrients to be absorbed in a longer period of time.
Most people are on diets to lose weight. Diets reduce the amount of calories and allow the body to burn some of its stored fats to produce energy. When a person adheres strictly to a balanced diet, his body will be supplied with all the necessary nutrients and calories that it requires to function normally. A diet should be balanced in terms of fat, protein, carbohydrates and essential vitamins and minerals.
One way of losing weight is through eating minimally and sparingly. For example, when dieting, it is better to eat small frequent meals and avoid snacking at all costs. Eating minimally means consuming food that is not very fatty and oily. Sparingly means eating small quantities of food. For example, a person may eat three salads and one boiled egg in one day. In a medical definition of diet (entry 2 of the textbook that guides practitioners of the art of living an average life), eating moderately means consuming foods that are rich in calories, protein and carbohydrates.
Another way of losing weight is through weight loss surgery. In such cases, the patient undergoes a serious surgical procedure that decreases the size of part of the stomach, thereby reducing the amount of calories that can be absorbed by the body. The stomach will then be able to absorb only the required amount of nutrients, thereby ensuring a healthy diet. Other diseases linked to eating too much are diabetes and heart disease.
A diet for prevention of coronary heart disease is considered to be a healthy diet if it prevents fat build-up in arteries. In addition, diet in this context refers to any kind of diet that prevents the accumulation of waistlines or “fat rolls”. On the other hand, a diet for preventing the development of heart disease is called a diet for prevention of cardiovascular disease or CVD. These are some examples of the different kinds of diets: a low calorie diet; a low fat diet; a mono unsaturated diet; a trans fat diet; and an olemic diet. Each of these three is divided into categories on the basis of caloric intake.
It is important to remember that the definition of the terms used in the discipline of diet as well as those used in the field of nutrition are not the same. In fact, many individuals may use a particular term without necessarily considering the meaning of the word or the differences between the two. The definitions fordiet, for instance, might refer to either a low-fat diet or a diet low in saturated fat, but this does not mean that the diet has a low calorie content. For, a diet low in calories might also have low fat content.