In nutrition, the diet is basically the total amount of food ingested by an organism or individual. The types of diet are vegetarian, diabetic, Mediterranean, vegan and others. It also includes the intake of supplements and vitamins.
A vegetarian diet is one of the simplest types of diets that can be followed to maintain good health. It is based on the total consumption of raw and uncooked vegetables and fruits. This diet requires daily fruit and vegetable intake to provide enough nutrients to the body. Some people are lactose intolerant, therefore they need to decrease the amount of milk and other dairy products that they consume. Others don’t like vegetables and thus their diet consists mainly of fish and meat.
Diabetic diets include intake of only certain foods. These foods help in lowering the level of blood sugar in the body. Some examples of these are pasta, rice and breads. Some people don’t like vegetables, therefore they have to eat more fruits and nuts. Low-fat diets, high in animal protein and low in carbohydrates help in reducing blood sugar levels.
A heart disease diet usually involves avoiding fat, cholesterol and sodium in order to reduce the risk of cardiac diseases. A high fiber diet is beneficial in lowering cholesterol levels. The biggest problem associated with diets for heart disease is that the recommended amount of intake is so small and it is difficult to get all the necessary nutrients. Even if the diet is followed up with regular exercise, the chances of reducing blood cholesterol levels is very minimal.
Many people are not aware of the fact that dieting should be combined with some regular exercise to reduce weight. Regular exercise helps in burning excess calories and also in reducing the risk of heart diseases. The combination of good nutrition and regular exercise will make the most of dieting.
People often get confused between a healthy diet and weight management. A healthy diet may result in weight loss and a healthy diet may lead to weight gain. Health experts recommend a combination of both dieting and exercising. A combination of dieting and exercise can go a long way in enhancing overall health. Dieting alone may not help you lose weight; in fact it may just lead to weight gain.
There are several types of noncommunicable diseases, which can compromise your health. These include obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Obesity is one of the main causes of chronic disease and contributes largely to the increase in morbidity and mortality. The best way to combat this problem is to have a healthy diet and regular exercise. You should consult your doctor regularly.
Although a healthy diet and exercise can go a long way in preventing obesity, sometimes this combination cannot achieve this goal. In such cases, dieting is resorted to. In some cases, especially those where dieting has failed, controlling calorie intake, limiting fatty foods and counting carbohydrate intake is more practical than resorting to dieting. In such cases, food controlling is done by avoiding eating large quantities of food at once or severely restricting portion size. This form of dieting is called “scaling” and is commonly used to treat people suffering from serious illnesses like cancer.