7 Basic Rules for Healthy Diet from a Nutritionist

Let’s talk about healthy eating rules. And this applies even to healthy people. Food neglect inevitably result in obesity or gastritis, ulcers, pancreatitis and other painful conditions.

So how do you build proper nutrition? Can you rely on your own appetite in this matter? Yes, of course, but only if you have healthy eating habits. If you have at least small problems, you a special nutrition plan.

What is a Healthy Diet?

The most accurate definition of a diet is an established eating plan based on age, physique, profession, climate, etc.

That is a diet is an individual, adapted nutrition.

Clinical Nutrition

​It is easy to get confused trying to build yourself a diet according to numerous nutrition books. Each diet in clinical nutrition is used for a specific disease.

But in modern conditions, a person over 40 already has a bouquet of ailments, so how to choose a diet to adhere to?

You can just create your own nutrition plan, where all the medical recommendations regarding a set of products, methods of food processing, and your own eating habits and will be taken into account.

When creating an individual diet, it is advisable to adhere to the basic rules of dietetics. Moreover, the first three rules are mandatory for everyone, regardless of whether there is a need for a special diet or not.

7 Basic Rules for Healthy Diet

1. Eat a Variety of Foods

Strictly counting the nutrients consumed is too tedious, and not necessary, except for obesity – here the calculation of calories will not be amiss. To balance nutrition, the daily diet should contain all groups of products. Within these groups you can choose the ones you like.

• Dairy products (milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.)
• Vegetables, fruits, berries
• Meat, poultry, fish, eggs
• Bread, pasta, cereals
• Fats (olive oil, butter, etc.)
• Sweets (honey, sugar, jam, etc.)

2. Stick to Your Diet

This is a basic rule, since eating at the same time triggers active secretion of gastric juice, and food is better digested and absorbed.

When losing weight people usually try to eat less, and most importantly less often. As a result, the effect is opposite. Long breaks between meals cause an uncontrolled feeling of hunger, and as a result, you eat even more.

At lunch, we recommend to eat a plate of soup, and indeed try to distribute the food evenly throughout the day. Everyone knows the phenomenon of student gastritis, when after a day of drinking coffee and eating sandwiches you end up with a huge pizza for dinner.

Not eating after 6 p.m. is not always reasonable. It all depends on what time you go to sleep. Last meal should be one and a half – two hours before bedtime. But it should be light. If you eat a steak, then your stomach will digest it all night.

3. Don’t Overeat

Everyone knows about harmful effects of overeating, but there are more and more obese people, even among young people. But obesity is not just about overweight. This is a main cause of coronary heart disease, gallstone disease, diabetes. Besides, overeating significantly reduces our energy and efficiency.

These three rules form the basis of proper nutrition.

4. Use Healthy Cooking Methods

Cooking methods are very important for our health. For example, with an ulcer or gastritis, food should not to irritate the gastric mucosa. Therefore, it is recommended to boil or steam products. Try a steam omelet for breakfast.

Often, changing cooking methods relieves such unpleasant symptoms as heartburn or pain in the epigastric region.

5. Count Calories Daily

It is a very important rule for those with obesity and diabetes. The composition of the products is very important here, and above all, the amount of easily digestible carbohydrates should be limited. When overweight, low-calorie and low-fat foods (cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkin, low-fat cottage cheese) are recommended.

However, don’t be overzealous, calculating proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It is enough to approximately know how many calories the product contains.

6. Keep Track of the Composition of the Products

All products have their own characteristics, and if you know them, you can use them with greater benefit. For example, all vegetable oils are high in calories and are well absorbed. The polyunsaturated acids and vitamin E contribute to increasing immunity and prevent the occurrence of atherosclerosis.

In addition, vegetable oils have a pronounced choleretic effect, and help prevent cholecystitis. However, as a result of heat treatment, these beneficial properties are weakened, so it is better to add vegetable oil to salads.

Other examples: rosehip contains a huge amount of vitamin C, which helps cure fatigue; blueberries have an astringent and anti-inflammatory effect due to the tannins contained in them; wheat and rye bran contains B vitamins, mineral salts and plant fibers, so they are very effective for constipation, etc.

7. The Diet Must Be Individual

This wise rule applies to all medicine, especially to eastern medicine. In Ayurveda this approach is fundamental. In relation to the diet, this means that any recommendations should be individual.

For example, with peptic ulcer, coffee is a prohibited product. But if you have been drinking coffee all your life, and there is no direct connection between coffee and exacerbation of the disease, it is not necessary to deprive yourself of a pleasant habit of drinking coffee in the morning. You can simply reduce the number of cups you drink.

Based on the main diet rules, we can conclude that you should not adhere to a standard diet. It can only be individual, as adapted as possible within general recommendations that take into account the state of your health.