Maintaining a balanced diet can feel like a math problem. Senior Nutritionist Victoria Taylor explains how many calories to eat each day, how many calories you need to lose weight, and how to eat a balanced diet.
What is on this page:
Eating healthy can feel like a numbers game – especially when you’re trying to memorize your fat, sugar, and salt limits while consuming your five servings of fruits and vegetables, two servings of fish per week, and a certain number of calories !
While the guide can be helpful, it doesn’t need to focus on the numbers. Keep in mind that your individual requirements can vary as they depend on your weight, age, health, activity level, and other factors. In addition, hardly any of us are so well versed in our diet and lifestyle that we eat and do the same thing every day all year round.
Instead of trying to stick to a strict amount of nutrients or calories, use the guidelines as a rule of thumb and give you peace of mind that you are on the right track.
Do you want to get fit and healthy?
Sign up for our 14-day Heart Matters newsletter for healthy recipes, new activity ideas, and expert tips for your health. Participation is free and takes two minutes.
I want to register
How Many Calories Should I Eat in a Day?
It is estimated that the average man should be consuming 2,500 kcal a day, or 2,000 kcal for a woman, which gives us a rough idea of where our energy intake roughly needs to be. Some days you may eat more and others less – the average is more important than individual days. How much exercise you do is also likely to vary, so your energy needs and appetite are likely to vary as well.
You can find tools online that will give you a more accurate idea of your calorie needs. But most of us don’t have to be that specific. You may have heard that calories don’t matter anyway – and there is some truth in that. We need to focus on where our energy is coming from and all of our diet, rather than just how much we eat.
Keeping track of your weight can help you determine if you are eating the right amount without counting calories. If you don’t want to weigh yourself regularly or don’t have a scale, you can also use a tape measure to measure your waist to see if you are gaining weight. Keeping track of the fit of your clothes also works. You do not need to weigh yourself every day unless told to do so by your doctor or nurse. In general, small changes on the scales over the course of the day are not a problem – what matters is the trend over the course of a month. (If you live with heart failure, see page 35 for information about sudden weight gain.)
For most people, body mass index (BMI) gives you an idea of whether you are a healthy weight.
How Many Calories Should I Eat To Lose Weight?
If you need to lose weight in general, a reduction of 500-600 kcal per day will help you achieve a weight loss of 0.5-1 kg per week. Reducing foods like cakes, chips, cookies, and chocolate and replacing them with healthier options will reduce calories and, just as importantly, include less saturated fat, salt, and sugar in your diet. This will help your heart health in addition to any weight loss you achieve.
Combining diet and exercise changes is the best approach. For example, when it comes to exercise, using 500-600kcal would mean around an hour of aerobics or cycling, or two hours of walking or vacuuming. Losing weight through exercise alone is difficult. More importantly, being active is good for your heart and mental health. So find exercise that you enjoy and the calories you burn are a bonus.
A healthy weight can help you feel better, and it will benefit your heart health and lower your risk of cancer and other diseases.
Food to be deducted – daily reference intake reference
Reference Intakes (RI) provide a guide to the maximum amounts of certain nutrients in our diet, such as fat, sugar, salt and saturated fat. They used to be referred to as “guide values for the day”. On food packages, these indicate what percentage of the RI a part of the product provides. They can be useful in helping you understand what part of the diet is contributing to your diet and in keeping track of what you are eating.
These are the daily reference intakes for adults:
- Energy: 2000kcal
- Total fat: less than 70g
- Saturated fat: less than 20g
- Total sugar (from milk, fruit and vegetables and added sugar): less than 90g
- Free sugar: (added sugar or in juice) less than 30 g
- Salt: less than 6g
For quicker control, you can see at a glance from the traffic light color coding whether the product is low in fat, medium or low in fat, saturated fatty acids, salt or sugar per 100 g. Try to mainly choose foods with green lights, some amber and only a few red ones.
When it comes to free sugar (any sugar, honey, or syrup that is added to food, drink, or naturally found in fruit juices), the limit is 30g per day (equivalent to 7.5 teaspoons of sugar). That may sound like a lot, but most people in the UK consume more than that, mostly because of the sugar we add, e.g. B. to muesli, tea and coffee as well as biscuits, rolls, pastries, chocolate and sweets and sugary drinks. The salt limits are set at a maximum of 6 g per day, which corresponds to about a teaspoon.
Foods to eat more of
Most of us should be eating more of certain foods to meet government guidelines – at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day (one serving of fresh fruits or vegetables is 80g) and 1-2 servings (140g per serving) of fish per week, one of which is oily. In general, we don’t eat enough of these foods – can you imagine how you can add more of them while enjoying a varied and healthy diet?
Chances are you’re not getting enough fiber either, as most of us don’t hit the recommended 30g per day. Good sources of fiber are fruits and vegetables as well as beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Whole grains are also important and can be easily added to your diet by switching from white bread, rice, pasta, and breakfast cereals to grain or whole grain bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and whole grain breakfast cereals (with no added sugar).
A balanced diet can achieve the
Instead of focusing on individual foods and nutrients, try to take a holistic approach to nutrition that will help ensure you get the best balance of nutrients in your diet. When we eat this way, we ensure that we are getting the right proportions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates in our diet, as well as the vitamins and minerals we need for our health.
source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/a-balanced-diet-how-many-calories-should-i-eat-in-a-day/
No comments:
Post a Comment