What is healthy and balanced nutrition?

Nutrimuscle accompanies you on a daily basis to provide you with a lot of relevant information, especially on your diet. What are the health benefits of protein? How to consume carbohydrates? Here are the answers to your questions.

Healthy and balanced nutrition is the basis of good health

Together with a sporting activity, a healthy and balanced nutrition is the basis of good health . This is undoubtedly a truism, but it is true that healthy and balanced food is giving way more and more to junk food.

This explains the explosion of obesity, certain cancers and cardiovascular diseases.

While we are always eating more, especially sugars and fats, we should, on the contrary, eat fewer calories and turn to proteins in order to stay healthy .

The health benefits of protein

Proteins are essential nutrients because the body does not know how to make them. You definitely need outside help. Proteins are found in dairy products, meat, fish, eggs...

The role of proteins is to maintain the cellular integrity of muscles, bones... as well as to provide energy in order to fight against fatigue and hypoglycaemia . Protein also moderates appetite and facilitates fat loss.

What are the daily protein requirements?

The daily protein requirements of a sedentary adult are 0.6 to 0.8 g per kilo (42 to 56 g for a 70 kg person). In order to stay slim and in good shape, it is best to increase this intake to 1 or even 1.2 g per kilo.

Protein powders are a simple, effective and economical way to boost your diet with quality protein .

Do not abuse carbohydrates

Carbohydrates (or carbohydrates) come from foods such as bread, pasta, vegetables, fruits, cereals... Carbohydrates from sweets or pastries are much more harmful to health than others.

If carbohydrates provide us with energy, their excess increases appetite, promotes fat gain (especially around the waist), diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Carbohydrates are not essential to us. A sedentary person should consume them in moderation.

Watch out for grease

Fats (or lipids) are found in butter, oil, pastries...

They are extremely high in calories: 9 calories/g. Fats promote weight gain, higher cholesterol and the occurrence of heart disease. It is prudent to be wary of them.

Understand the nature of the different fats

Our foods contain three main categories of fats (or lipids):

1. Saturated fatty acids: these are the fats that solidify in the cold. We talk about "bad fats".
2. Monounsaturated fatty acids: their main representative is olive oil.
3. Polyunsaturated fatty acids: these include omega 6 (borage or evening primrose oil) and omega 3 (fish oil). These are the good fats.

This third group of fatty acids is essential for good health . However, our body does not know how to make them. This is the reason why they are qualified with the term: "essential".

Their importance is explained by the fact that lipids make up the protective membrane of all our cells. The lipid structure of our membranes faithfully reflects the profile of the dietary fats we absorb.

Thanks to essential fatty acids, our cells are vigorous and efficient. On the other hand, a diet too rich in bad fats weakens our cells, favoring the appearance of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes...

What are omega 3 fatty acids?

Omega 3 essential fatty acids are lipids mainly derived from fish fats. Cod liver oil is probably the best known source of omega 3s. So-called fatty fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna, etc.) are the richest in omega 3.

The active omega 3s are EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). Since they cannot be synthesized by the body, they must imperatively be present in our diet. The minimum healthy intake recommendations are 250 mg of EPA and 250 mg of DHA per day .