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Healthy Diet Plans >>  Healthy Eating >>  Healthy diet plans
Healthy diet plans
 
Food is used in the human body for a number of different functions. Food is used for energy production which is an essential basic function of the body. Energy is required by every single process that takes place in the body. Nutrition is also used to provide fuel for the body to build tissues and organ cells. Smaller quantities of nutrients are used for a variety of different processes that take place within the body from time to time.
These nutrients, usually vitamins and minerals, are necessary for the maintenance of several bodily functions such as hormone production and distribution. 

Modern lifestyles tend to be physically relaxed and sedentary. This leads to a situation where the individual may be performing little, if any, physical activity during the day. Modern diet habits tend to rely heavily on processed foods and easily available foods such as fast foods, pre cooked meals and easy cook recipe meals. When these two aspects of poor exercise and poor nutrition combine, the combination can be rather deadly. Obesity is much more common these days than it used to be in years gone by. This is because more and more people use computer technology to get their work done. While this in itself is not bad, it may lead to a situation where the individual consumes too much food compared to the body and energy requirements. Healthy diet plans are therefore needed for people who are following diets that lead to weight gain and general poor health. Most of the diets that cause weigh gain tend to be deficient in some other area such as in vitamin and mineral content. This leads to a strange imbalance in the body where some nutrients are readily available and others are in short supply. This can cause long term health problems for the individual. People should therefore follow healthy diet plans. 

Healthy diet plans are those that taken into the account the physical stature of the individual and also the work that is being done by that individual during each day. A sports person, a laborer and a person with a desk job will all have hugely different requirements when it comes to their nutrition. Healthy diet plans work when they are tailored to the unique needs of an individual. Healthy diet plans usually feature plenty of variety. Variety is essential for the health of the human body because of the many different nutrients that are required by the body. If one sits down and lists the various vitamins and their uses for the body, the list would go into a few pages. Vitamins are just one food group for the human body. One can therefore understand the importance of variety in the diet. Good, balanced healthy diet plans are needed by individuals who are unfit, underweight or overweight. These people typically suffer from more health problems than those who follow generally good healthy diet plans. 

A healthy diet meal plan is one that avoids the use of processed foods and fast foods. Fast food is usually prepared in an unhealthy manner using processed ingredients that are not necessarily good for the health of the individual. A healthy diet meal plan should instead contain fresh fruits, vegetables and a selection of protein and carbohydrate sources. These may include items like meats, grains, legumes and lentils. The important thing to note when planning a healthy diet meal plan is to ensure that the recommended daily requirement of an individual is taken care of. The recommended daily requirement of the human body is a generalized level of nutrition required by the body which is prepared by health care monitoring bodies around the world. This study takes into account the needs of the adult body and then uses this data to publish its values for what is considered to be a healthy intake of food. The recommended daily intake of food can be used as a guide for healthy diet plans. However, as mentioned above, the unique requirements of the body must also be taken into account. An individual with a relaxed desk job may need little less than the recommended daily requirement whereas one with a labor intensive job may require much more nutrition, particularly nutrition for energy production. 

One important aspect of healthy diet plans is the preparation method and the ingredients used in the preparation of dishes. People often make the error of ignoring the side ingredients which may add various nutrients to the meal. Foods that feature in healthy diet plans should be bake, roasted or grilled rather than fried. Fried foods are generally unhealthy. The ingredients used should also be modified to suit healthy diet plans. The use of olive oil instead of traditional cooking oil will help greatly to reduce the intake of harmful cholesterol, for example. 

Many people can use healthy diet plans to lose weight. This is one of the simplest methods of losing weight. When one switches from a regular unhealthy diet to healthy diet plans to lose weight, one will immediately cut down the consumption of fat and unnecessary nutrients. This will help the body lose some of its weight quite quickly. Weight will only be lost if the quantity of consumption is the same or less. Exercise always needs to be added to the program of healthy diet plans to lose weight. Exercise helps to burn fat and excess energy and will prevent unused food from being stored as fat. This is vitally important of an individual who wishes to lose weight. Weight loss without exercise is nearly impossible. 

Healthy diet food recipes need not be bland or tasteless. Often, the sheer variety of healthy diet food recipes ensures that there are numerous different ingredients all competing for the attention of an individual’s taste buds. It is important for the healthy diet food recipes to be as varied as possible so that the individual is encouraged to actually undertake the diet that he or she needs to take to improve the health of the body. 

Submitted on February 1, 2011