Diet vs. Eating Healthy

learn the difference

Diet. This one word maybe the activity most woman or even girl from all over world do all the time in order to lose weight or to be skinny. But eating healthy? Not so much.

Diet (verb) restrict oneself to small (or even big) amounts of special kinds of food in order to lose weight. Whille eating healthy means consuming variety of foods that give you the right quantities nutrient you need to maintain your health, feel good, and have energy.

Now you see the different? And this is only from the definition.

Diet purpose is to lose weight or to be skinny, while eating healthy is to maintain your health. It sounds different, but it actually have the same effect. You will lose weight when you start eating healthy. When you lose weight you’ll get skinnier, you’ll be fit.

When oneself is on diet, let’s assume she’s a girl, she would skip meal. Believe me, cause I did. I thought by reducing my food intake daily, I would lose weight. And yes I did. But I feel hungry all time. I was starving and weak. And I surely didn’t feel good about myself, let alone feeling healthy. Because skipping meals is a big no.

Diet seems like a good idea and quick way out to lose weight. But as quick as it is to lose weight, it is also increase your chance in gaining weight once you stop dieting. Skipping meals through the day and eating one large meals in the evening resulted in potentially risky metabolic changes, such as elevated fasting glucose levels and a delayed insulin response - this conditions, in long term, could lead to diabetes.

Think of your metabolism as a muscle. If you skip meal, your metabolism do nothing. When you didn’t use (train) your muscle, you’ll lose it. Just like muscle, your metabolism begins to slow down. As it become slower, it will not be able to break the food down quickly and the food will be stored as fat.

When you lose weight from diet, you actually lose muscle, not fat. Because when you skip meal and starve, your body will scavenge your muscle and brain tissue to survive. You’ll be skinny but with flabby skin. So your fat is still stored on your body. Remember that the aim of losing weight is losing fat, not muscle. You need muscle, for its job is to burn calories.

Feeling weak and tired when skipping meal is due to your dropping blood sugar counts, which you should get from eating (carbohydrates). Not eating also ensure that you may not reach your daily adequate nutrient, because supplements wasn’t enough.

Now, some may say that they on a healthy, balanced diet. Your diet is healthy when you consume all the nutrients in the right quantities, those are whole grains, fruit and veggies, protein, dairy and fat & sugar. This is what healthy eaters try to achieve. Because maintaining good health does all the other thing for you. By eating healthy - which means avoiding fast food, high-calories food and sweet treat, sodas, beer, and highly processed food - you’ll eventually start losing weight, losing fat, have shinier hair and clearer skin, increased energy and better sleep.

Your healthy eating plan should consist of 3 main meal, which is breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every meal is as important as others. You could have healthy snacks in between meal, if you would like to follow 3-hours-for-a-meal rules. But again it’s your body, find out what’s best for you, if you feel like 3 meals wasn’t enough, have more, but spread your calories intakes, so you total calories would be the same as the 3 meal plan.

Now it’s your choice whether to call it healthy diet, healthy eating, or clean eating. Either way, you’ll lose weight, you’ll be fit and toned, you’ll be healthy.