Table of Contents
Good Food
Food is the fuel that fires your body. When you eat clean, your body is provided with good fuel; thus, it runs safe and sound. On the other hand, when you eat too much junk and unhealthy food, your body’s processes feel sluggish, disrupting your whole bodily mechanism and mood.
So the answer to staying healthy is to eat healthy foods. If you avoid food altogether, you will have a heavier price to pay as you deny your body much-required fuel. So if you still have the question of why healthy eating is important lingering around your head, here’s the answer.
1. Good food heals your body and improves immunity.
Eating foods rich in vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids aids in boosting your immune system. A strong immune system is quite essential for strongly arming your body against disease-causing pathogens.
Even though there are quite a number of supplements that claim to provide you with vitamin C, none of them are of any worth if you don’t eat vitamin C in its original form. Your body can easily absorb vitamin C when you intake it in the form of citrus fruits.
There are a lot of superfoods that will help you get your daily intake of these nutrients, to name a few garlic, kale, chia seeds, matcha, blueberries, walnuts, and yogurt.
Next time when you go food shopping, stop by the fruits section and take a quick glance. Include as many colorful fruits as possible in your grocery cart. Eat the rainbow to ensure that you build a strong defense system against pathogens.
2. Good food strengthens your bones.
Bone density is a real thing. You need to intake good food to maintain it at its optimum level. If you include a lot of fast food or unhealthy food in your diet, the effects can be easily seen in your bone density. We might have surely heard, “drink milk for your strong bones.” Even though that statement isn’t entirely true, as milk alone won’t do the trick, the essence is to eat good, whole foods to improve your bone strength.
Your body needs a balanced diet to work well. The calcium and vitamin D you get from your diet helps improve your bone strength. On average, an adult needs around 700mg of calcium. You might be thinking that it’s time to take the supplements as you won’t be able to reach that level on a daily basis. But, no, don’t reach out for your supplements yet. Hear me out.
Following a varied yet balanced diet with lots of minimally processed foods can easily help you reach the required daily calcium levels. If you love dairy products, milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt can contribute to a huge chunk of your daily intake.
On the other hand, if you are lactose intolerant or vegan, green leafy vegetables (like broccoli), tofu, soya bean, nuts, and homemade bread would be more than enough. Fish is another underrated source of calcium, especially the ones with soft bones like sardines.
One thing to note is that many consume spinach hoping to get a good calcium intake, but know that spinach also contains oxalate, which can derail your body’s calcium absorption.
3. Good food makes your skin glow!
Ever wondered why your skincare isn’t working as you expect it to be? The main reason is that you aren’t nourishing your body from the inside. No matter how much money you spend on skincare, if you aren’t hydrating your body enough and providing it the nutrition it needs, your skin won’t look like that of the models from the TV advertisement.
When you don’t eat or eat unhealthy food, you can easily notice it from how your skin behaves. For example, it would look pale or lifeless, or you start getting a lot of acne and breakouts even when you are way past the teenage phase!
When you eat good healthy food, the nutrition helps to nourish and repair your skin’s outer layer. Thus, almost reversing the damage.
Start eating a wide variety of green and leafy vegetables along with a good amount of fruits. Eat fruits that help you stay hydrated and try hitting certain hydration goals.
So next time you see someone with glassy-looking skin, don’t curse your genes for not giving you such skin. Genes are part of the answer to glowing skin, but a major portion is lifestyle and eating habits. A good, active lifestyle with delicious healthy food helps your body and skin thrive, which is why healthy skin glows.
4. Good food is light on your digestive system.
You would have surely felt this. I experience it every day. Eating healthy food feels light on your stomach, and your digestive system doesn’t have to do a lot of hard work to digest it all.
This is true for all minimally processed foods.
One of the reasons you feel heavy is because you ate a lot of food, and now your stomach isn’t running at the speed it is supposed to. In that case, all you have to do is intake food that makes you feel full easily but is low on calorific value – lots of green leafy vegetables, cucumbers, and watermelon fall in this category.
Furthermore, eating good food reduces nausea, gas, and bloating and eases your bowel movement. You will no longer have to spend hours pushing out your waste if you eat food that is rich in fiber and digests easily.
5. Good food helps you maintain a healthy weight.
Eat healthy to maintain a healthy weight. Eating a variety of foods that help achieve a balanced diet that fits your body will help you keep a tab on your weight. Give importance to green and leafy vegetables, fruits, whole grains, adequate amounts of nuts, and low-fat dairy products. This should be a starter to eating healthy.
Processed foods are one of the main villains if you wish to reduce your body weight. This is because they have a lot of unhealthy ingredients added with the primary motive to enhance food taste and extend the shelf life. So next time you reach out to a canned tin of beans or vegetables, remember that they are processed and contain many ingredients your body doesn’t need.
Is there a correlation between food and healthy life?
There sure is. Food plays a vital role in maintaining your physical as well as mental health. When you don’t eat right or avoid food just to stay underweight, you may develop some kind of eating disorder in the future. Eating disorders can really mess up your mental health. When you develop an eating disorder, all you can think about is the calories in the food you eat, which can even lead to life-threatening diseases.
So what can you do?
Maintain a good relationship with food by not over-restricting anything. Even if you have kept a restriction on your sugar intake, treat your body once in a while with your favorite chocolate. Learn to balance both processed foods and healthy ones. You don’t have to live on a full fruits-and-veggies diet. Once in a while, you can go to a fancy restaurant and eat your favorite pizza or savor your favorite decadent tiramisu.
Developing a good eating habit requires time and effort from your side. However, the process can be broken down into the following steps.
1. Increase the number of vegetables
Start with the obvious act. Increase the intake of vegetables in your diet. For example, you used to eat just a whole load of pasta for dinner. From today onwards, add a carrot or cucumber to your dinner meal.
Similarly, incorporate a fruit or vegetable in every meal. You can either get it cooked or eat it raw. It’s all up to your taste preference. Remember not to cook the vegetables for so long as they can easily drain out their essential nutrients. You need to retain the texture as well as the nutrients when you cook the vegetables.
2. Start substituting soda/sugary drinks with water/sparkling water
If you are attracted to cold sugary drinks, now is the sign to limit the amount. Cold sugary drinks are nothing but cold water with a lot of sugar. Sugar is the number one villain in counteracting your efforts to lose weight.
When you feel the need to get a soda, substitute it with water or even cold water. If this doesn’t work, substitute it with sparkling water. If it’s the bubbles and fizzy taste your body craves, then sparkling water will help.
Also, just drinking water isn’t enough. You need to achieve a certain level of hydration. But this doesn’t mean you drink 5 liters of water every day. The water required varies from person to person. Some may need a lot of water to keep them hydrated throughout the day, while others need very little; the geographic factor and what you do throughout the day matter a lot.
3. Choose whole grains instead of refined carbs.
The whole bread you eat daily is a classic example of refined carbs with almost no nutritional value. Instead, try switching to multigrain bread made using a lot of nutritional seeds and whole grains.
Instead of eating pasta for lunch and dinner, try replacing it with whole grain. You can go for anything that caters to your taste and is easy to prepare.
The good news about eating whole grain is that it gives you the sensation of feeling full way earlier than refined carbs. Therefore, you tend to take low calories, thus, helping you maintain your body weight and also helping the body regulate the weight.
4. Keep a tab on your portion.
Let’s face it. Lowering the intake of your food overnight is an impossible task. So what can you do? If you fear that you tend to overindulge in something, purchase it in moderation to satisfy your body’s cravings.
You can also reduce the quantity you transfer from the packet to the plate, and by reducing, I mean a gradual decrease and not a sudden drop in the amount. Replace this with a lot of green leafy vegetables to keep you satiated for a long time and not harm you in the process.
5. Implement changes in your lifestyle
One of the main reasons why people shy away from good, healthy food is by stating the reason that they don’t find enough time to prepare food at home or to purchase good produce.
Meal prep is a friend in this case. You can easily make batches of your favorite food and keep them in the fridge. Then, prepare them when it’s time to eat; voila, you get time to enjoy yours guilt-free.
You can do meal prep for meals of all time. For example, if you want a quick breakfast on the go, an overnight oats jar will provide you with all the ingredients while ensuring you reach your destination on time.
Final Thoughts
Food can be your friend or foe, but healthy good food is definitely your friend. It gives you the proper nutrition while keeping your physical and mental health fine. When you develop a good relationship with the quantity and quality of food, you start to see food as your friend and not as an enemy that causes you to put on extra kilograms.
Always remember, food is the field that runs the machine that is your body. When you stop intaking or corrupting the fuel, the machine’s performance is seriously affected. The analogy perfectly fits this situation, and I hope it conveys to you the message I intended.
