Is It Ever Right To Completely Cut Out Certain Foods From Your Diet?
- January 31, 2017
- 0 comments
- Posted in Nutrition
Everyday we are shown celebrities in the news or in magazines, that are trying out the latest FAD diet, from the cabbage soup diet to the maple syrup diet – some are even choosing to cut glutenous food out of their diet when they aren’t intolerant. But the question remains – is it ever right to completely cut out certain foods from your diet?
Find out more about what cutting food groups out of your diet could do to your body and its functions, with some help from the team at Vitabiotics.
What is a FAD diet?
With the media and celebrities promoting the uptake of FAD diets, many people on a quest to lose weight or live a healthier lifestyle are choosing to follow in their path, by eliminating entire food groups from their everyday diet. What they don’t tend to realise, however, is that this can lead to malnutrition and an unhealthy body – the complete opposite to what they were hoping for. On top of this, choosing to exercise too intensely can put further strain on the body, resulting in severe weight loss and fatigue.
It’s understandable that people can become confused about what’s good for them and what’s bad, especially with the media showing all kinds of conflicting facts and advice. To help you understand the impact cutting food groups out can have on your body, we’ve given a summary of the food groups that are commonly cut out of diets, why each of them is vital to your health and what can happen without them.
Cutting Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are extremely important when it comes to providing energy. Not only do they give enough to make your exercise worthwhile, they also give enough to keep us going when resting, too.
The low-carb diet is possibly one of the earliest FAD diets to come about, with the Atkins diet proving extremely popular throughout the years. What many dieters don’t realise, however, is that reducing your carbohydrate intake, or even cutting it out altogether, can harm your body rather than help it.
When you consume carbohydrates, your body turns it into glucose – an essential energy source for all our bodies’ functions. This process helps to keep your pancreas and liver functioning, which maintains your insulin and blood sugar levels. The insulin in your body then allows our cells to gather energy from the glucose, to prevent your blood sugar levels from spiking and to keep you from feeling fatigued.
Cutting Fats
There’s an overwhelming amount of people who mistakenly believe that all fats are bad, and so choose to cut them completely from their diets. Understanding the difference between good and bad fats can greatly improve your health, rather than choosing to remove them entirely.
Fats can help to provide additional energy to your body, on top of what carbohydrates provide. Not only that, they can also help to maintain your temperature, protect organs and improve the absorption of vitamins and minerals.
Saturated fats take up more of your body’s energy to break down, compared to unsaturated fats, which is what makes them more unhealthy for your body. While you should try to limit the amount of saturated fat you have in your diet, you shouldn’t remove them altogether.
On the other hand, unsaturated fats like omega 3 and omega 9, are vital for your body and its health, to help maintain a healthy cholesterol level. These healthy fats can be found in foods such as olive oil, avocado, salmon and nuts.
Cutting Dairy
Many choose to cut dairy from their diets as a way of reducing bloat, lose weight and to clear up their skin. In fact, removing all dairy from your diet can do more harm than good.
Dairy is the biggest provider of calcium for your body and without it, you can not only put yourself at risk of calcium deficiency, but you can also increase your risk of low bone density.
The calcium found in dairy can also help to maintain the function of your muscles, as well as supporting your nervous system, too.
Cutting Meat
More and more people are choosing to turn vegetarian or vegan each day, not only to protect animals but to help the environment, too. But without any meat in your diet, your body could be missing out on vital protein and iron.
Your body uses protein as a way of growing and repairing. Without it, your body can become weak, leaving your feeling tired and fatigued throughout the day. Not only that, but with the lack of iron from missing out on meat, you could be putting your body at risk of developing anaemia.
Because protein takes a while to break down compared to other food groups, it becomes a vital way of giving your body energy. It’s recommended that you consume a combination of both protein and carbohydrates, especially if you plan on exercising regularly.
At the end of the day, each food group brings its own benefits for your body and by cutting certain groups out of your diet, you won’t be the best that you can be. So if you’re planning on building on your health and fitness, consider a healthy balanced diet over cutting food groups out.
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