Healthy Eating – What Does That Mean?

Does being slim mean I eat healthy? Or do I live healthily if I regularly do detoxification cures and diets? And why is it so important to eat healthy? Prof. Dr. Ingo Froboese, sports scientist at the German Sport University in Cologne, provides information on important questions relating to the much-discussed topic of healthy nutrition and says how it is easier to keep a healthy perspective in everyday life.

What is healthy eating?

“I want to eat healthier” is one of the most common questions I hear. It’s actually not that difficult. The supermarkets themselves are now of such high quality that anything is possible. Especially if you walk a little through the supermarkets and make sure not to buy food, but groceries.
That’s a big difference.
Food is the product that the body can handle wonderfully, that it can process, that it needs to stimulate certain processes. Foodstuffs – things similar to fast food – the body can process them, but overall they offer far too little in terms of calories. This means that if I make a differentiation here and pay much more attention to the natural products, then I’m doing a lot right in terms of healthy nutrition.

Many are always afraid and say: “I have to do a lot, let go of all the sins, change something radically in order to eat really healthy and sensibly.”
No, that is not necessary at all.
The most important thing: Please pay attention to the quality!
And the onion is just as important as the beef fillet or the beautiful broccoli. On the other hand, you have to try to realize certain rhythms for your body: full of energy in the morning, rich in nutrients at midday, and rich in protein in the evening. If you try to implement this system a little bit and do without all snacks, i.e. give the body a break of four to five hours and don’t just “mumble around” as is often the case, then you’re doing a lot right without that you have to do without.

Why should I eat healthy?

Of course, a reasonable, healthy and balanced diet benefits the body immensely! Because the body naturally thrives on getting the right quality of food, e.g. to give energy for the day and for everyday tasks – and to give the body sufficient building materials for regeneration, repair and restoration.
Both are processes that we have to supply the body with in high quality on a daily basis. “Because you are what you eat!” means at the same time: The higher the quality of the products in my diet, the better my metabolism is, and the better the repair and renovation of each individual cell is ultimately!

How important are fruits and vegetables?

On the one hand, fruit and vegetables are rare, especially in the winter months, but on the other hand they are one of the most important suppliers of vital substances and nutrients. The green pigment chlorophyll in particular offers the body many physical protective mechanisms. We have phytochemicals that
stimulate and activate a lot in the body. And above all, we get a lot of dietary fiber from vegetable and fruit products. So always incorporated into everyday life, that means: I give the body a lot of vital substances that it needs and to activate processes. Of course, I can also achieve this with other products, but never so efficiently and above all with the variety of colors in the variation as great a stimulation of the body as with the diversity of fruit and vegetables. That’s what makes it so incredibly interesting!

Healthy means: Colorful variety

According to the German Society for Nutrition, the body needs a colorful variety of foods every day to stay healthy:
The varied diet should therefore contain as many plant products as possible, such as cereals, cereal products, especially whole grains, and potatoes. Vegetable products such as cereals and potatoes provide carbohydrates in the form of starch, among other things. They are important energy suppliers for the body.

According to the German Society for Nutrition, fruit, vegetables and salad as well as milk and milk products also belong on the table every day. They are rich in essential vitamins and minerals. Fruit, vegetables and salad also contain fiber and phytochemicals that can have a positive effect on metabolism and health. Milk and dairy products provide the body with proteins, but also with minerals – for example calcium, which is important for bone formation.
Animal products such as meat, sausage, fish and eggs and vegetable legumes such as beans, peas and lentils can complement the diet. They also serve the body as suppliers of high-quality protein. However, some animal products, such as meat and sausage, also contain undesirable substances, such as saturated fatty acids. The German Society for Nutrition therefore recommends eating meat and sausages in moderation.

The body also needs fats. Healthy fats can be ingested, for example, with high-fat sea fish such as salmon, mackerel or herring, or with vegetable oils. Nuts are also rich in healthy fatty acids.
The recommendations for healthy nutrition of the German Society for Nutrition are supplemented by the advice to drink regularly and sufficiently – as an adult at least 1.5 liters a day.

In fact, consumer behavior is often different. According to the WHO, people consume more energy-dense foods, fats, sugars and salt than recommended. And many don’t eat enough fruits, vegetables, and other fibers like whole grains. The unfavorable eating habits are favored by factors such as the increased supply of processed foods and the overall change in lifestyle, according to the World Health Organization.

Some foods, if eaten in large quantities, can lead to obesity or damage your health in other ways. The World Health Organization (WHO) therefore recommends the following as part of a healthy and conscious diet for adults:

• Consume less than 10% of total daily energy expenditure in the form of free sugar.
• Consume less than 30% of the total energy turnover from fats, preferably in the form of vegetable fats (e.g. in vegetable oils, nuts).
• Eating less than 5 grams of salt (preferably iodized) per day.

Are diets part of a healthy diet?

Diets are very popular to compensate for being overweight or an unhealthy diet and to achieve quick results. So far, research has not been able to conclusively clarify whether dieting can really effectively lose weight. And diets are usually not healthy either. On the contrary: If you don’t pay attention to a balanced, varied diet and are not accompanied professionally (e.g. by doctors) during a diet, you can also damage the body in the long run.

How “healthy” are diets?

When we think of dieting when it comes to healthy eating, we immediately fall into the trap.

Because dieting always means doing without. You are far too little. Usually sometimes only 800 to 1000 kcal. And that’s a path that ultimately leads to a dead end, because then, you all know, the yo-yo effect kicks in!

Healthy eating is much more! She is balanced.

It gives the body exactly what it needs! Energy, macro-nutrients, carbohydrates, fats and proteins and of course too.

Vitamins, trace elements and the nutritional elements necessary to stimulate and activate certain metabolic processes.

Dieting is something completely different if you understand it as fasting or abstaining from food.

Caloric restriction has nothing to do with healthy eating.