Healthy Eating Plans

Healthy eating plans are all about eating balanced diets that are high in nutrients, low in fat, and that contain the appropriate servings from each of the five food groups (see our basic food groups section). So healthy eating is vital for your wellbeing.

Healthy eating plans requires that you get your recommended five servings of vegetables and fruit per day. There are many ways to slip fruit and vegetables into your daily diet, which are convenient, tasty and time-effective. Choose soups with extra chunky vegetables or a vegetable base. Also, few people seem to realize that a glass of fruit or vegetable juice constitutes one serving. To add a little zest, experiment with vegetable based sauces. Use oils that are high in unsaturated fats, which are good for you. Extra virgin olive oil is healthy and flavourful. Try to consume foods in their purest, freshest forms, and steer clear of heavily processed foods, even if they claim to be low fat. Calories in food is the key to your balancing a diet that ensures you don’t put weight on. Heard of calorie counting as a dieting option?

Our handy diet profile on the right can help you to target the number of calories you shoudl be ingesting each day – calories in food soon stack up so this may help you to work out what you should be eating!

This calorie counter will give you the amount you should consume if you want to maintain your weight.

If you are looking to lose weight, it is important to reduce your intake of calories while if you are looking to gain weight then you need to increase your intake.

Low carb diet

Following on from the Zone Diet revolution made popular by celebrities like Jennifer Aniston the low carb diet was praised as a quick way to drop unwanted pounds and was seen as an alternative to traditional low fat or calorie-reduced eating plans. But what exactly is a low carb diet? Low carb diets instruct you to limit your intake of foods like grains, fruit and vegetables, and refined sugars like candy, cakes and sweets. This plan works on the principle that foods like bread, pasta, refined sugar and even healthy items like fruit and veg are converted by the body into sugars which, if they’re not used by the body, will be stored as fat. If you limit the amount of them you indulge in, you will store less fat, and your body will be forced to turn to burning it’s own fat supplies for energy, therefore helping you lose weight.

Consult your doctor before embarking on any kind of weight loss plan

Body Mass Index Calculator

An easy way to see if you are ‘overweight’ is by trying our Body Mass Index calculator (also known as a BMI calculator). The relation between fatness and your Body Mass Index differs with age and gender – for example, women will tend to have a higher percent of body fat than men for the same BMI.

Diet Supplements

If you’re concerned about diet supplements or diet pills, then use thefitmap.co.uk to find the facts. Whether you’re getting adequate nutrition, or trying to gain weight, diet supplements may be able to help you reach your goals.