Nutrition
‘You Are What You Eat’ - Sound familiar?
This phrase is frequently used, and for good reason. Nutrition has a significant impact on our health and wellbeing and, as a result, what we eat can directly affect how we feel.
Surrey Dietetic Services can provide a detailed analysis of your diet and eating patterns and advise on the necessary dietary modifications to ensure that you obtain all the essential nutrients you need in appropriate amounts. By helping you to achieve a balanced diet you and a member of the team from Surrey Dietetic Services can work together to improve your health and energy levels.
In addition to improving your general health you may want to use dietary modification to focus on a specific target, e.g. weight loss, or to improve the symptoms of a specific condition, such as diabetes or Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Surrey Dietetic Services can help you to achieve these aims.
So you’ve decided that your diet has room for improvement - but what changes should you actually make? Here are some general tips to get you started:
What comprises a healthy diet?
The following 8 main points outline a healthy diet (MAFF, 1991, revised 1997)
- Enjoy your food
- Eat a variety of different foods
- Eat the right amount to be a healthy weight (Our BMI calculator allows to calculate if your weight is within a healthy range)
- Eat plenty of foods rich in starch and fibre
- Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables
- Don’t eat too many foods which contain a lot of fat
- Don’t have sugary foods and drinks too often
- If you drink alcohol, drink sensibly.
Guidelines such as above are invaluable to give broad ideas on a healthy diet but advice tailored individually to you and practical ideas can be given by a registered dietitian.
The advice above gives you a brief overview of why nutrition is important and what good nutrition is.
But your diet is more than just nutrition, its food too.
Food is meant to be enjoyed as well as provide you with nutrients. Surrey Dietetic Services will always ensure the advice we give you allows you to enjoy food as an important part of your life.