Nutrition Summary

In closing this series of posts on specific nutrition components I'd like to give some general advice for planning your diet. My recommendation first and foremost is to sit down with a licensed dietitian, not some one who says they are a nutritionist, and plan out a diet that suits your needs. A diet is personal and it needs to take into consideration your lifestyle, your current health, and your goals.
That being said, my general recommendations are: First, know what your are eating. Keep track of the nutritional value of the foods you eat and the quantities you are consuming. It is difficult to pinpoint changes that should be made if you don't know what you are eating. Second, set some specific goals before you make changes to your diet. Simply saying you want to eat more healthy is not clear enough because foods are not that easily categorized as healthy or unhealthy. With specific goals defined you can then create a diet that will help you achieve those goals. Third, you don't have to follow a trendy diet plan. Just because your friends are all on the same diet or you heard one works great doesn't mean its the right one for you. You diet needs to be tailored to your body, your needs, and your goals. Remember your diet is not something you do for 3 months, meet your goals, and then stop. Following that model you will simply lose any benefits you may have attained in those 3 months. You need a diet that you can comfortably sustain for life. Fourth, supplements are not a quick fix and are probably not even necessary. Severe deficiencies are not particularly common among Americans. If you did find that you were lacking in some particular nutrient you could simply eat foods containing that nutrient rather than take a chemcially engineered pill. I can't tell you that supplements are harmful because I don't have any research to back that up. I will say that I don't see them as necessary and I personally would rather eat foods with the nutrients I need rather than try to get those nutrients from a chemically engineered pill.

I hope these posts on nutrition have been informative and have motivated you to give some serious consideration to your diet. I hope you find a diet that suits you and will help you achieve your health goals. Remember, diet and exercise are both huge components of your overall health, don't make the mistake of relying solely on one or the other. Use them in tandem to get the results you want.