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How to stay healthy and avoid fad dietshome > nutrition > how to stay healthy and avoid fad diets
The majority of these force its unknowing followers to adopt eating regimes that are unhealthy, unbalanced and unsustainable over a long period of time. Many require that you stop eating carbohydrates or that you eat only fruits, vegetables or expensive supplements. Whatever quick results they promise will usually disappear soon after and may lead to more serious health problems in the long run.
When it comes to dieting, it is important to keep in mind that eating well is a life-long commitment. And because the goal is not to continuously try radical diet changes all of your life, following basic nutritional guidelines is the best way to ensure a long term healthy lifestyle. Keep in mind that fruits and vegetables are your best friends: learning how to incorporate them into every meal and snack is a great way to ensure that you are getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals and fiber you need. Although three to four servings of meat a week is recommended, substituting this with low-fat fish, nuts, beans and legumes can be a great way to get the protein you need and watch your cholesterol at the same time. Keep your intake of fatty cheeses and other milk products to a minimum and choose the whole grain alternative (for rice, pasta and bread instead of highly processed flours) whenever you can. 
Often, how one cooks is more important than what they eat. Whenever possible, bake instead of frying. If you have to fry, canola and olive oil can be a healthy alternative to hydrogenated vegetable oils rich in saturated fats. Keeping your salt intake to less than six grams a day will also work wonders for high blood pressure. Finally and possibly most importantly keep the sweets for special occasions only. Ingesting heavy amounts of refined sugars throws all of the bodies' systems out of whack and requires more nutritional supplementations to offset the disruption. Eating healthy is a life's work. Building good eating habits today will keep you from resorting to fad diets tomorrow. The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion provide some useful pages of dietary guidelines, as does the UK Goverment site: eatwell.gov.uk. |
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