There are many diets that tell you to consume a small amount of carbohydrates or to cut them out completely. Some diets cut out fats and are high in carbohydrates. These are the kind of diets that you may be successful with initially or for the duration of the diet, but it is not something you can maintain for your lifetime. Basically, the best way to eat healthily is to have a balanced diet with some guidelines. Seeing as the caloric intake varies for everyone, we like to look at the distribution of those calories in terms of percentages.
Carbohydrates (45-65%):
- A simple or complex compound that are used for our main source of energy.
- The goal is to get the majority of our carbs from the complex form (whole grains, fruits and vegetables) rather than the simple form (additive sugar, candy, cookies etc..)
Protein (10-35%):
- A nutrient that is essential to nearly every cell in the human body including skin, bones, muscles and organ tissue. The building block of proteins is amino acids.
- Good sources of proteins are found in many forms: grains and legumes, eggs and dairy products, and the most popular is animal meats.
- There are about 20 amino acids that are required for us to function normally. 11 of them can be synthesized in the body, but the other 9 need to be consumed through food. For this reason, we need to try and get our protein from different sources since each one carries different amino acids.
Fat (20-35%):
- There are several types of fats. Saturated, trans, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Although we want fats to represent 20 to 35% of our diet, saturated fats should only make up 7% and trans fats should make up no more than 1%
- Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are the ones we want to aim for. Polyunsaturated fats have two main categories: Omega 3 and Omega 6. Omega 3 is found in oils from cold-water fish like tuna, herring and sardines. Omega 6 is found in vegetable oils such as sunflower and corn oil.