Diet and Healthy Weight

Diet is what we eat in our daily lives. It has a significant relationship to our weight, and we can find out this relationship easily. For example, if we consume a lot of junk food in a month, we will discover our weight will increase. Instead, if consume more vegetables and less meat, our weight will decrease. Our diet is an independent variable and our weight is a dependent variable.

Obesity is a common health problem in Western countries. The main reason is because people are absorbing excess calories than we can consume a day. In the long term, without enough physical activity, we get fat and gain weight. Junk food, such as hamburgers, pizzas, French fries are all high-calorie foods, if we eat too much this kind of high-calorie food our body will store fat. Anything in excess, even protein can be stored as fat which can lead to weight gain.

           (This picture is referencing from Eat Great to Lose Weight Diet Plan)

In order to have a healthy weight, no matter weight gain or weight loss, we need a balanced nutrition-diet plan; our meals should be balanced with the right amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat. Some people misunderstand that if we want to lose weight, we just have to minimize the amount of food that we eat or even stop eating. It is totally wrong, even if we lose weight in that way will have an obvious outcome in the short time, it is harmful to our body. In the future, if you start eating more again our weight will gain back easily.

(This picture is referencing from Captain Series)

In order to get a healthy weight, we should start with a calorie calculator to determine how many calories you will consume in a day and how many calories you will need in order to gain weight or lose weight. For people who want to gain weight, they will need to increase the calorie intake, but to do so it does not mean that they should eat a lot of high-calorie junk food. They can change their diet by increasing the volume of food they eat or by choosing foods that are energy-dense which include legumes, nuts, seeds, olives, and avocados, etc. On the other hand, for the people who want to lose weight, they have to eat fewer calories than they currently eating every day. They can eat lower calorie foods such as green and leafy vegetable. There is a guideline in About.com for building the meal plan, it shows that “5 to 11 servings of grain (half should be whole-grain) , 2 to 3 servings dairy or calcium containing foods , 1 to 2 servings of protein sources such as meat, eggs, poultry, fish or legumes , 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day”. The outcome will be more effective with combination of physical activities.

What we consume in our daily meals will directly affect our weight. A good diet plan can help us built our healthy weight effectively and efficiently. Diet is a critical factor for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. 

Work Cited

About.com , (2011, June 16). How To Lose Weight. Retrieved from http://nutrition.about.com/od/diets/a/mealplan.htm. (2011, July 17 )