- [Narrator] When you start thinking about
what's in your body,
you really need to think about what your nutrition is.
Because the food you that put in your body is the only
thing your body can use to make the proteins and make
the carbohydrates and lipids that make up your body.
So some recommendations for a healthy diet.
A variety of foods.
You do not want to eat the same thing day in and day out.
By mixing up what you eat a little bit, it gives your
body more choices of the different nutrients to use
to build the components of your body.
Healthy weight.
Well, a healthy weight can vary.
It really depends from person to person.
So a healthy weight is where your body is comfortable.
It's where you have the ability to be physical if you
want to do something as far as sports or exercise.
It's where your body can respond to what you want to do.
So a healthy weight.
Fruits, veggies, whole grains.
These are always good to eat.
Now can you eat too much of them?
Well, it can get overboard sometimes, sure, but you
definitely want to make sure you have some fruits
and veggies everyday.
Mix in some whole grains.
So as long as you have grains anyway, which you should
to balance diet, have some whole grains.
Low cholesterol and saturated fat.
You might have heard this whole idea of saturated versus
unsaturated fat.
Well the unsaturated fat is a little better for you.
Not saying you want to have tons of it, but a little
better than the saturated.
Low in cholesterol.
The key thing is you do need some cholesterol.
You do need some fat.
Your body must have cholesterol and fat present to allow
certain vitamins and other processes to occur in your body.
So even if you didn't ingest any cholesterol, your body
would still make some.
Sugar.
Should you just be eating now two, three cubes of sugar
a day?
Not the best idea.
Now is there sugar in your food?
Sure, of course.
There is naturally occurring sugars
to go with the different sugars and fruits.
So what you want to do is with sugar, you can use it fine,
but just not overdo it.
You want to make sure it's kept in moderation.
Salt, sodium.
Well, sodium is actually part of salt.
Salt is sodium chloride a lot of times.
So really, salt and sodium kind of go hand in hand.
But you want to keep this in moderation.
Because if you end up ingesting too much salt or too much
sodium, that will attract more water in your body.
That means when you consume liquids, whether it's in the
foods you eat or it's simply by drinking, by having more
salt or sodium in your body, you'll retain more water.
By retaining more water, one it makes you feel
uncomfortable sometimes.
But two, it can be very problematic with blood pressure.
Because having high amounts of salt or sodium in your body
means high amounts of water, which usually means larger
volumes of blood.
Because your blood's mostly water.
So more blood means higher pressure.
And usually you don't want your blood pressure going up.
So again, moderation.
Alcohol.
Moderation, have you noticed a trend, moderation,
moderation, moderation?
A little bit of anything typically is not too problematic.
But a lot of things can get very problematic.
In the case of alcohol, not just simply the intoxication
on what you might do while you're drunk.
But the fact that the alcohol you consume, the more you
dehydrate your body.
And when you dehydrate your body, you're throwing everything
a little bit out of sync.
Well you might could throw a lot out of sync too
but the problem is, your body has to recuperate,
has to recover from that dehydration.
So a little bit here, a little there, no problem.
(mumbles)
But anytime a lot here or a lot there, it's that much
harder for your body to come back after that problem.
Here is your food pyramid.
Now if you think a hold on, I've seen the food pyramid
in the past and this is different.
The USDA keeps updating the food pyramid.
They're trying to include the newest research, but also
include everyone's (mumbles), how people are living.
So you have your grains, your vegetables, your fruits,
your oils, your milk, your meats and beans.
Well, if you notice, the width of the line in the pyramid,
so the orange, the grains is the largest.
The oils, the yellow's the thinnest.
It gives you a proportion of how much of each category
you should consume.
So for the grains, half of your daily grains
should be whole grains.
At least half should be.
Because the whole grains a lot of times are even
a little bit healthier.
So check out the labels.
Look for the ingredient list.
If you move over to vegetables.
Dark green veggies, orange veggies, dried beans and peas.
Well, the darker greens and the oranges give a great
amount of nutrients that you need.
A lot of times you want to think of when you're eating
your vegetables, try to eat the rainbow.
Try to have all different colors if possible.
So you have your greens, you have your oranges,
you can have some reds, some yellows.
So go through and try to pick out various colors.
The fruits.
Well you don't want to eat just one.
Have a variety.
Now, a lot of times it's quite difficult to get a variety
since you have seasons.
Well, this is in season's here, that's in season there.
Well, a lot of times, frozen fruits can really help out.
So even in the middle of winter, grab a bag of frozen
blueberries or something and put in a cereal.
They're not right from the bush but they still
can taste pretty good.
It helps get a variety of your fruits.
Oils.
Now a lot of times the oils you don't want to overdo.
So you're cutting down on your solid fats.
Looking more for the liquid fats which sounds
a little weird but.
Solid fats, things like sticks of butter, margarine,
shortening, lard.
Now I'm pretty sure no one's just going to grab
a stick of butter or a spoonful of lard and just eat it.
That just doesn't even sound good.
But what we're looking to do is, you'll use these sometimes,
sure, you have to use them in certain recipes.
But try to reduce the amount.
Where using your intake of oils or fats,
think about fish oils or vegetable oils,
oils derived from nuts.
In a liquid form, a lot of times these are going to be
your unsaturated fats.
A little bit healthier for you.
Milk.
Well it's not just milk, it's any calcium food.
We're talking about cheeses.
Talking about yogurt, milk.
But looking for low-fat or fat-free in a way.
But another thing is when you're going low-fat
and fat-free, watch what's on the label.
Read those labels and see what else is mixed in there.
So if you don't consume or can't consume milk, maybe you
have a lactose intolerance, figure out what else is
rich in calcium.
Whether it be a calcium supplement or other foods that also
are going to help give you your calcium supply.
And then they grouped meat and beans together.
The reason meat and beans are together is because
they're both high in protein.
So what you want to do is when you're looking
for your meats, look for lean of meats.
Meats that have lower fat contents.
So depending on the cut of meat, it might have a higher
or lower fat content.
Poultry is great because it's very low in fat.
Bake it, broil it, grill it.
What you don't want to do is deep-fry it.
But by simply baking it, broiling it or grilling it,
that's going to help prevent any added fat or added
mixture going in.
And you want to keep the choices.
Have some fish, some beans, peas, nuts.
You want to mix everything up.
What you don't want to do is eat that red meat
every single night, or every single day.
You want to vary it up so that way you get different
sources of protein to help with your diet.
But if you also notice, the side of this pyramid has a
person walking up stairs.
Part of a healthy diet is also exercise.
So getting in some daily exercise is going to help out
to balance your food intake.
To make sure you're utilizing the ingredients that
you've eaten.
To make sure you're utilizing that protein to build up
your components of your body.
Using the milk for extra hard bones, using the fruits
and veggies and grains for energy sources but also
for nutrient sources.
So it's one big package.
Eating healthy but also exercising.
So let's look at the individual categories.
Let's start with carbohydrates.
Now carbohydrates are a main source of energy.
It's your quick energy source.
Give or take, don't memorize the number, give or take
about half of our caloric intake should be from carbs.
Now depending on what your body type is, depending on
what you're doing, if you have a lot of working out to do.
Maybe you're a sprinter or a short-distance runner.
Where there's a lot of very fast exertion, but then
break, fast exertion, break.
Well you'll be using a lot of carbohydrates for those
fast exertions, and then breaks.
So you might be on the higher end of the scale,
more towards the 65%.
But what we're looking at simple carbs, which are your
sugars, and then complex carbs.
Starch, glycogen, fiber.
Now maybe you've heard that it's better to eat
complex carbohydrates.
When we look at complex carbohydrates like fiber,
fiber does not get broken down by your body.
When you ingest fiber, it's simply going to pass through,
helping to give roughage in your system.
Glycogen.
Now that's how your body stores simple sugars.
Helps stores glucose.
Starch.
Given the number of complex carbohydrate, our bodies
can partially break that down.
So looking at starch, glycogen and fiber
as your complex carbs.
Lipids.
Again, you have to have some lipids in your diet.
When we look at saturated fats, meats, dairy products,
palm kernel oil, these a lot of times have solid fats
at room temperature.
Especially milk, milk is a dairy product, no I'm talking
about the cheeses, the ones that have more of a
cell component.
And a lot of times, these saturated fats can raise
your LDLs.
Your LDLs are more, quote, your bad cholesterol,
the one you want to keep down.
Well the unsaturated fats are coming from your
plant sources.
Olive oil or olives.
Safflower.
You have corn.
Canola oils.
So a lot of the liquid fats.
Certain cold water fish.
You've heard maybe omega-3 fatty acids.
Well a lot of times, these fish fatty acids
are high in omega-3, very helpful for the body.
All these unsaturateds usually can bring down the LDL
levels, or help to lower your, quote, bad cholesterol.
So you're A in more to use the unsaturated fats
but less saturated fats.
Does that mean that you're to completely eliminate
all saturated fat?
No, again, moderation.
You want to kind of keep in mind the moderation behind it.
And then we have these trans fats.
Trans fats are the hydrogenation of vegetable oils.
What's actually happened is they've pumped extra
hydrogens onto these oils.
Trans fats are a sure way to raise your LDL count.
A lot of times trans fats now are being advertised
as not in the foods.
Or trans fat free or zero trans fat.
The only problem is labeling can be deceptive.
You can say zero trans fat per serving if there's .4 below
a lot of times.
Because .4 rounds down to zero, a lot of times you can
get away with that.
So zero trans fat doesn't always mean necessarily zero,
it means just very low levels.
So you have to kind of keep that in mind to think about
what these labels are actually saying.
Because food labels are all meant to help sell the food.
Sure there's certain things that have to be truths on there,
but a reason to watch out, kind of think about what these
actually mean.
What are the distinctions between what saturated fats,
unsaturated fats, and trans fats mean.
Protein.
Actually protein's acts as your body's building blocks.
Proteins literally are what your body's built on.
Your muscles are made of protein.
Your bones have a lot of protein in them.
Most of your organs have a lot of protein.
Your skin has, you get the idea, there's a lot of things
that have protein.
Well these proteins are made from 20 different
amino acids.
You'll take these 20 different amino acids and string
them together in a long line.
So depending on what the order is, you might have a line
of 500 amino acids that could have countless different
possibilities.
So of these amino acids, it all depends on
how they're arranged.
Twelve amino acids are made by the human body.
Eight, though, are called essential amino acids.
These eight essential amino acids, you cannot make
on your own.
So the essential amino acids you have to ingest from food.
No question about it.
So complete proteins, we want something that contains
all 20 amino acids.
Most of the animal protein is going to have all 20
amino acid.
So if you're eating protein based on animal products,
for instance, meats, they typically are called
complete proteins.
You'll be able to get all 20 amino acids from the
one amino acid you're getting.
So 20 amino acids.
But soy protein also is a complete protein.
That's why if someone is a vegetarian, whichever level
of vegetarian they are.
If they're not consuming any animal product, soy is a huge
way of getting protein in their diets.
So animal protein or soy protein.
A great complete protein.
But then we have these incomplete proteins.
Now complete versus incomplete.
Incomplete means at least one of the essential
amino acids is not there.
So most of your plant-based proteins is missing
at least one, if not more.
Now if someone's a true vegan vegetarian, will not touch
any animal products, they have to figure out how to get
their proteins.
Well they can get it from soy, but there's a limitation
of how much soy you want to ingest.
I mean, someone might get sick of it after a while
and just want a break from it.
Well if you know what's in the actual foods you're eating,
if you know what the proteins are in the different plants,
you can mix and match the different plant proteins
to make sure you accompany all 20 amino acids.
So there is a way of getting around and usually the
incomplete proteins do still obtain all amino acids.
But it takes a bit of knowledge as in planning to make
sure you meet those needs.