Ultimate Guide To Select A Healthy Diet Plan Suitable For You

Today I will discuss different types of healthy diet such as ketogenic diet and paleo diet. I will also guide which diet should you select to attain your fitness goals.

Hey everyone, have you been crushing your fitness goals already or you are confused about which healthy diet should you follow to lose fat or build muscle easily?

Well, today I am going to discuss the different healthy diets & I will help you select the right one particularly for you.!

Many people think of diet as the tool to weight loss. Some think that diets help them build muscle.

The normal people and the fitness enthusiasts are so eager to lose fat or build muscle that they see a diet that is fresh in the market & as everybody is following that diet they also start following it blindly.

Without knowing the purpose of the diet you won’t be able to lose fat or build muscle easily.

That’s the thing that people don’t understand & after following the diet for about 15 days they don’t see results & they quit on that diet and move to another one thinking that this diet will help them reach their fitness goals.

Don’t worry I was also the person of this dabblers mentality. I also often changed diets if I wasn’t seeing results fast.

This changes in diets not only didn’t show results but I wasted a lot of money buying different things related to that particular diet.

I used to start a diet excited to lose 2 pounds per week & by not losing even a pound I then used to change the diet & move onto the next one. This kept on happening for months but after months of disappointments, I decided that I will now go in-depth & talk to an expert that already has a body that I wanted.

Over time I gained knowledge that I needed to lose fat & build muscle easily. I understood that I was focusing on wrong things while I was on a diet.

The first thing I got to know was that healthy diet should be your lifestyle.

I was constantly changing the diets & wasn’t focusing on the simple energy balance principle & was deviating from my actual food intake. I know that you can relate my story to yours.

If I would have focused on only one healthy diet & would have stuck to the basic principles then I would have easily transformed my body.

So remember that there are many reasons why you are not able to build muscle or lose fat on a diet.

They are:

• calories
• physical activity
• your metabolism
• types of food you eat
• your hormones

These are just some factors that we can measure at a greater level but there are other factors that are not in our control such as genetics, diseases that run in the family for generations & much more.

However, you only need to look out for the factors that are under our control.

So let’s jump right into the healthy diet that might help you to lose fat or build muscle while I say the word “might” because different bodies have different tolerances to each food product so it may happen that one diet that works for me might not work for you or someone else.

The first one that has been proven as a healthy diet for the ones who are having diabetes or some insulin sensitivity issues is the Atkin’s diet or the Ketogenic diet.

The ketogenic diet also is known as keto diet is very low in carbs where your net carbs that you can have is not more than 20 grams.

Keto diet is high fat, low carb & moderate amount of protein. The reason for keeping high-fat content is that when you get on this diet is that the body starts producing ketones and uses fat as fuel instead of glycogen.

The main reason is to improve insulin sensitivity & to help diabetic patients to get their blood sugar level under control.

While this may aid in a rapid weight loss in starting by following this diet as you deplete your body from carbs so the glycogen will reduce from your body and you lose weight but not fat.

This weight loss lasts for a week or so & then you hit a plateau if you don’t take energy balance into consideration.

That’s why people jump onto another diet without even thinking.

You can vary the proportion of fats & protein according to your fitness goals. For example, if you want to lose fat you can take 50/40/10 % of fats/proteins/carbs so that you keep on losing fat & by having the moderate amount of protein you can maintain your muscle mass.

You can change a number of carbs that you take while dieting to check the tolerance to carbs.

It takes the time to enter into ketosis, the stage where your body starts using fat as fuel. What I mean by net carbs is there are foods that contain fiber that is an insoluble and indigestible carbohydrate. The carbs that could be converted to glucose comes under net carbs.

But note that you need to take care of the type of fat that you put in your body. You only need to focus on polyunsaturated fat food sources that are rich in omega -3 and not omega-6.

Also, too many ketones can cause the problem of Diabetic Ketoacidosis(DKA) where the body starts producing excess blood acids(Ketones).

But don’t worry if you keep an eye on your eating habits of saturated and unsaturated fats then you will be fine. While you enter ketosis you may feel tired, your cortisol levels will be high, your energy will be drained, you will feel fatigued, however when you enter ketosis fully you will normalize from all the symptoms.

Moving onto another diet called Paleo diet which is a great way to get your health to an optimum level.

The basic principle of paleo dieting is to remove all the grains, sugars & modern vegetable oils & replace it with high-quality meats, fish, eggs & vegetables.

While I was trying to focus on high-quality foods such as eggs, olive oil, vegetables as I am not a total carnivore I cannot meet up my daily protein intake.

I tried taking in my daily protein need through eggs & vegetables but I had to eat a lot of them which was like a torture to my body.

In fact, many like this approach & they enjoy the taste of high-quality meats, fish so they can obtain their daily protein need.

However, if you eat meat, then it should be from pastured animals, the reason is the ratio of omega -6 to omega -3 polyunsaturated fats are better for pastured animals than grain-fed animals.

In this diet you also need to restrict your sweets, fruits, that means if you want to be truly committed to paleo then you need to follow these rules to see the effect of detoxification of your body.

But there are some issues with paleo as well as keto and all the other fad diets out there that they are not sustainable.

Ask yourself that could you follow these diets for life??

I think you answered no.

This could happen that if “you started on a paleo diet thinking to improve your overall health & you went on the paleo diet for 3 weeks without any issues but then you are tempted to eat out or your friends told you to eat out with them or a client that is very important to your business told you for a lunch or dinner outside that you cannot say no to.

Then you break the principles &  you see yourself as guilty thinking that as I have already broken the principles then let me indulge some more into foods I like & then I’ll again start fresh.”

This causes you to rebound & you lose all your hard work for those days. I have felt all these feelings myself & the thing about dieting is that it should be your lifestyle & not just another 3 months to shredded diet,

The most important thing I talked about earlier is sustainability. So then you ask what’s the solution then??

Simple, just focus on the energy balance principle. People that think that counting calories don’t work is because they count them wrong. They misplace calories by few hundreds & then say that this doesn’t work.

So as I told in my previous article about basics of nutrition as long as you stay on the energy balance principle you will lose fat, build muscle or maintain it while eating foods you like

According to my methodology & after experimenting with others I have found that eating more protein, moderate amount of carbs & a bit of omega-3 rich polyunsaturated fats, you will be able to build muscle, lose fat or maintain your weight easily.

So I suggest you follow the ratio of 40/40/20% of protein/carbs/fats, or if you like 40/45/15 % of protein/carbs/fats.

You can eat grains, sweets, chocolates, actually, I suggest you do so as it is sustainable dieting that you won’t get bored and will enjoy your workouts too as you are giving fuel to your body that it can utilize easily.

You need carbs if you want to push more weight in the gym to get stronger & to build muscle & your overall health will remain great even if you sometimes indulge in foods you like & it will give you the mental boost to workout even harder.

That’s it for this article..!!!

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