For most students, this is their first year living on their own and having to care for themselves. As courses begin and the pile of unfinished work accumulates, nutrition takes a back seat to “education” – or at least that’s what you tell your parents. But it’s important to recognize that what goes into your body directly affects what your body can accomplish.

Much like a car will run poorly if you fill it with a cheap grade of gasoline, poor foodstuffs will not allow your body to perform to its fullest. To help prevent taking home extra flab at Thanksgiving, sneak a peek at this review of the fundamentals of good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.

Calorie wasteland

Popular belief holds that exact calorie counting and strict portion sizes are the only way to follow a balanced diet. In reality, it’s not that complicated. Basically, good nutrition requires an understanding of what your body needs and what you can eat to fulfill those needs.

Golden Guide

The best place to start for a healthy diet is the Canadian Daily Food Guide, that chart you learned to love back in elementary school. It lists the four major food groups-sorry, artifical orange isn’t one of them-and daily recommended servings.

As a rule, a serving size is about the size of a clenched fist. By following the serving recommendations, you will provide your body with an adequate amount of nutrients that it requires to properly function. But beware the fat! Fatty foods and sauces may add flavour and variety to your food, but they literally make you fat. Consume them in moderation to control excess calories.

The benefits of following the food guide are many. Not only does it prove that mom is always right, it also helps expand your eating horizons. The guide does not limit eating to specific food products, only to specific classes of food products. There’s no need to cut out the carbs if you follow this guide, just make sure you don’t eat more than 5-12 fistfuls and you’ll be just fine.

Don’t skip breakie

It is essential that you consume at least three meals a day, and that a filling breakfast is one of those meals. It has been shown that breakfast skippers tend to be fatter than those that consume a regular breakfast and that meal skippers in general tend to more than make up for the calories later in the day.

Vegetarians take note

In light of recent meat quality issues in the GTA, vegetarianism might be
a new lifestyle choice for you; but, beware of the perils associated with a no-meat diet. Meat products are rich in iron, iron is a fundamental component of hemoglobin, and hemoglobin is responsible for delivering oxygen in your body. No meat means a reduction in iron intake and the risk of developing a condition known as anemia. To this end, regular consumption of dark, leafy green vegetables is a nutritious way to ensure adequate dietary iron.

Added iron intake will also help athletes who may be prone to sport-induced anemia. When you exercise or play a sport, your body destroys countless old red blood cells. Since exercise demands efficient oxygen transport, the body creates new red blood cells to replenish the blood supply. An iron supplement will allow the body to have enough iron to create the red blood cells.

Coked out

One of the biggest calorie and nutrient traps comes in the form of soft drinks. Almost all carbonated soft drinks have hefty levels of fructose. While fructose is common in fruit, and is known as a fruit sugar, in soft drinks the high fructose concentration prevents most of it from being burned. From there the fructose winds up as fat, the hardest form of fuel for the body to burn.

We advise that you stick to either diet soft drinks or beer. Beer doesn’t have any calories and it makes you live longer…

Preaching Moderation

Nutrition is an important aspect of university life and an element of academic success that few students recognize. Not only will diet decisions affect the present, the patterns and habits you associate with eating will stay with you for the rest of your life. If you choose a balanced, moderate path today, you will reap the benefits of good health for years to come.

Remember this?

Daily recommended intake:
Grain products: 5-12 servings
Meat and meat alternatives: 2-3 servings
Fruit & veg: 5-10 servings
Dairy: 2-4 servings