The 4 types of healthy diets to stay in shape

What kinds of nutritional diets can we follow to feel better?

When we think of having a healthy lifestyle, the first thing that comes to mind is physical exercise and, obviously, the right diet. We often associate weight loss with physical and mental well-being. However, this is not always the case. There are diets that sacrifice our health for the purpose of losing weight. Something that is not at all advisable.

The key to weight loss is that we consume fewer calories than we burn. If we do not want our health to be affected, we must cover our basic food needs. In today's article, you will find a list of healthy diets for your body to thank you.

The importance of eating habits: early education

When it comes to healthy eating and nutrition, it is not enough to go on a diet for a certain period of time, especially if we want long-term results. What is important here is that we acquire healthy eating habits..

If we have children, early ages are ideal for instilling a healthy lifestyle. Eating habits are formed and developed in childhood, mainly in the family environment. Parents' knowledge and beliefs about what does and does not nourish are transmitted from the first years of life and shape, to a greater or lesser extent, the future eating behavior of a child. Just as it is necessary to educate in values, it is also necessary to educate in healthy habits.

• Recommended article: "Types of vitamins: functions and benefits for your body".

Food in today's model of society

If the family has good eating habits, their habits will have a positive impact on their children, who will benefit in terms of maintaining long-term health. However, eating habits are sometimes sometimes, eating habits are affected by different aspects:

• Social influence and overvaluation of the prestige of some foods over others.
• Economic factors
• Fads
• Beliefs
• Advertising pressures

We live in an era in which many of the foods we consume go through different chemical processes and are sold in large quantities to maximize their profitability. Therefore, it is of vital importance to educate children (and also the rest of the population) about nutritional aspects.

In this way it is possible to detect what is healthy and what is not. The consequences of capitalism at the nutritional level are compromising our health through food. This is an increasingly worrying reality and, for this reason, in the last decades the cases of obesity have increased. Diet, along with the lifestyle of Western societies, is contributing significantly to this epidemic in developed countries.

So... what does psychology say about nutrition?

Society influences our diet, but so does our mind and our emotional and psychological state. Psychologist Jonathan Garcia-Allen, also an expert in nutrition, explains in our article "Psychology and Nutrition: the importance of emotional eating" that, "What we eat not only affects how we feel, but how we feel has an effect on how we eat." This suggests that our emotional state is a determining factor when it comes to eating well, and eating well also has an effect on our emotional health.

For Garcia-Allen, pishological factors and weight gain are closely related.. "Psychology can be an important strategy to improve adherence to a diet when we want to control excessive food intake in cases of overweight. The figure of the psychology professional can be essential in the fight against obesity, because emotional factors are very important when it comes to achieving a permanent change in the habits that affect eating." Clinical psychologists, in fact, intervene in the treatment of eating disorders.

Types of healthy diets

If you want to eat well to be healthy both physically and mentally, in this article you can find a list of the best healthy diets.

1. Zone diet

The zone diet is a type of diet that is becoming popular because it aims to cover the nutritional needs of macronutrients. To carry it out, simply apply a basic principle: consume carbohydrates, proteins and fats at each meal..

Five meals a day are recommended and consumption is as follows: 40% carbohydrates, 30% proteins and 30% fats. Fats should be mainly healthy, i.e. monounsaturated and polyunsaturated; and carbohydrates should be mainly complex, i.e. slow absorption.

• If you want to know more about healthy fats, visit our article: "Types of fats (good and bad) and their functions".

2. Mediterranean diet

The Mediterranean diet is one of the best known diets because it is very healthy, especially for our Heart health.especially for our heart health. It is known as the Mediterranean diet because it has its origin in the nutritional habits of southern Europe, which includes countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy.

It is a balanced diet that emphasizes the consumption of a variety of foods, with fruits, vegetables, cereals, fish and meat. One of the important elements is olive oil, a great source of unsaturated fats. It should not be consumed large quantities of food, and it is preferable to eat seasonal products. This diet suggests cooking grilled, boiled or consuming raw and fresh food.

3. Vegan diet

Veganism, rather, is a philosophy or a lifestyle, in which the person does not eat anything that comes from animals, including eggs and dairy products**. Vegans generally adopt veganism not only for health reasons, but also for environmental and ethical reasons**.

Although the vegan diet has been criticized, several studies have confirmed that it is a healthy diet. However, it is necessary to include variety in the diet to benefit from the high nutritional value, and it is necessary to ingest a reasonable amount of vegetable protein and iron. If you want to carry out this type of diet, it is advisable that you go to a professional for information.

4. Organic diet

The organic diet arises almost as a necessity nowadays, because many people are not aware of what they are ingesting. Processed products, with high levels of salt, sugar and trans fats are everywhere.

The main axis of this type of diet is that the food must be organic.. These are characterized because their cultivation process is totally natural, without chemicals, without additives, without pesticides, without fertilizers, without hormones, without transgenics, that is to say, without toxic and aggressive compounds that contaminate the soil, its fruit and, consequently, are not healthy for people.