Eating a healthy diet will help you get all the nutrients and energy your body needs. Research shows that some cancers, heart disease, strokes, diabetes and gut diseases are all influenced by diet. So eating a healthy balanced diet can help protect you and reduce your future risk.
Today we lead busy lives and our eating habits are suffering as a result. Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health, and can help you feel your best. This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the right amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.
Healthy eating recommendations:
Eating the right amount of food for how active you are
Eating a range of foods to make sure you’re getting a balanced diet
Start each day the way you wish to continue. Evidence also shows that people who eat breakfast are more likely to maintain a healthy weight as it helps to keep you full and energised through the morning and it also provides you with essential nutrients.
Eat a healthy snack or meal every 2-3 hours. This will maintain your energy levels and fuel the body. Keep hydrated and reduce caffeine, alcohol and foods that don’t support your health.
A balanced diet means eating the right amount of foods from all the food groups. There are five main food groups and each one contains essential nutrients. Nutrients are vitamins and minerals that help the body function correctly. Eating nutrients from the right food groups helps keep your body fit and healthy. The five main food groups are:
carbohydrates, which contain lots of energy and nutrients and are found in starchy foods, such as bread, pasta and potatoes
protein, which helps with growth and repair and is found in meat, fish, beans and eggs
fruit and vegetables
milk and dairy foods
foods that are high in fat and sugar
Know your Calories!
Calories are a measure of how much energy your food and drink contain. The amount of calories you will need can depend on a number of factors, for example, your sex, your age, your lifestyle and your size. To maintain a healthy weight, you need to balance the amount of food and drink you intake with the amount of calories you burn during exercise. To lose weight the healthy way, you need to use more energy than you consume by eating a healthy, balanced diet with fewer calories whilst increasing your physical activity.
For a healthy balanced diet, a man needs around 2500kcal a day to maintain his weight and for a woman, she will need 2000kcal a day to maintain weight. If you are looking to lose a pound per week, you should take off 500kcal from your suggested daily intake.
Do you think you are too busy to eat healthy? Do you have a takeaway once a week? If you have answered yes to these questions, read our Healthy Eating Factsheet now!
Do you want to eat healthy but do not know where to begin? Try our simple and health recipes to get you started.
Keeping Hydrated
Water is an essential nutrient of life. Adequate hydration is the key to short and long term healthy well-being and is needed for almost every bodily function. Even mild dehydration adversely affects both mental and physical performance: just 2% dehydration can cause a 20% reduction in performance in physical and cognitive activities.
What is Water used for in the Body?
Keeping your body hydrated is essential, particularly when working in varied conditions and when you need to concentrate for a long period of time. Drinking little and often throughout the day can keep us alert and on track. Our bodies lose approximately 2.5 litres of water each day just by breathing, sweating and going to the toilet. If we dont pay attention to our water intake, our bodies can become quickly dehydrated.
5 Signs of Dehydration
Drowsiness, headaches, dry skin, eyes and lips, lack of concentration and irritability. If you become even mildly dehydrated, it can directly affect your ability to perform at your best. The evidence linking mild dehydration with a range of chronic illnesses is growing. Routine dehydration, even if mild, can have potentially harmful and even fatal consequences. Gallstones, kidney stones, constipation, asthma attacks, urinary tract infections, a range of cancers plus the likelihood of suffering heart attacks, are just some of the possible chronic, longer-term effects of persistent mild dehydration
To improve your agility to work in the short term and to boost your long term health benefits you can:
Carry a water bottle around with you and keep refilling it
Aim to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water each day
Replace coffee, tea and fizzy drinks with water at every opportunity
Drink water with coffee
Drink a glass of water with every meal
Have hydrated meetings
If you are thirsty, drink water instead of anything else
Remember if you are in a hot or humid environment, it is vital that you stay hydrated.