Health and Nutrition -- Diet Essay

Therefore, the only value of a diet is in its capacity to be maintained over the course of a lifetime; otherwise there is no point to it.

Nutritional Plan

To lose excess body weight and maintain a healthy weight and body composition without excess fat over the long-term, the nutrition plan must eliminate fats of all kinds as much as possible as well as simple carbohydrates. Both fats and simple carbohydrates are readily converted to body fat if calorie consumption exceeds calorie expenditure. With respect to body weight issues, all sources of fat (i.e. both "good" fats and "bad" or saturated fats) are equally problematic. Meanwhile, complex carbohydrates need not be avoided or substantially restricted. Whereas simple carbohydrates (such as sugars, white flour, regular pasta, white rice, white potatoes, and some fruits) are easily converted into blood sugar and then stored as body fat, complex carbohydrates (such as dark wheat, semolina pasta, sweet potatoes, and brown rice) are broken down much more slowly and stored in the muscles and the liver as energy in the form of glycogen.The diet plan, therefore, consists of eliminating complex carbohydrates and all fats as much as possible while consuming approximately 70% of daily calories as complex carbohydrates and approximately 30% of daily calories as proteins. Ideally, meals should be smaller and more frequent instead of larger and les frequent. Finally, while digestion continues to occur at all time of the day or night, the largest and most calorie-dense meals should be avoided shortly before bedtime, only because digestion during sleep is somewhat slower and will result in higher concentrations of blood sugar in the morning than after the same period of time since the same meal when consumed during the day. Otherwise, there is no significance to the specific time of day or night for food consumption.

Source Consulted

Larson-Duyff, R. (2007). American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition

Guide. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley….....