EVERY day you have a choice.

You can eat for your cravings, eat for your feelings, eat for your habits, eat for your addiction, eat for your socialisation, or you can eat for your life, your health and your well-being.

Whether you are skinny, average or overweight, most people make the wrong choices. Some are clearly wrong, some appear to be right, but one day their health tells them otherwise.

So yes, there is a good and a bad, a right and a wrong when it comes to food choices. If your present and future well-being, and the well-being of your loved ones are important to you, read on.

For a common perspective, diet simply refers to an eating regimen, not nutritional changes for weight loss. These regimens, as discussed, are not taking special medical needs or regional restrictions or foodstuff availability into consideration, they are simply based on the food choices studied.

Bad diets

Nutritionally one would speak of a poor diet, and not bad diet. A poor diet is commonly considered as directly contributing to illness and death.

However, I once heard a prominent dietician imply that any diet which sustains life long enough for reproduction, and well enough for a pregnancy to come to term, is a good diet, as it ensures the survival of the specie.

I hate to differ, but for my loved ones and myself, the “survival of the specie” is too low a bar to accept.

A bad/poor life diet would:

• Entirely eliminate natural food groups such as proteins, complex carbohydrates, vegetables, healthy oils, fibre, fruits, herbs, nuts, seeds, and/or grains;

• Have insufficient proteins, fibre, micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), and water;

• Overly impose the use of one food group at the extreme restriction of another;

• Encourage large meals and excessive calories;

• Have insufficient calories;

• Utilise processed foods, including fast foods;

• Include heavy simple carbohydrates (sugars and flours).

If you are wondering about weight loss diets, the following can be added:

• The programme is overly convenient. Unless you plan to have the convenience of pre-packaged foods, or limited food choices follow you all your days, and with all the travels and occasions in your life, super convenient plans are simply a crutch, shielding you from developing great eating habits, skills, and choosing abilities in your life, regardless of your schedule, and all have over a 90 per cent chance of rebounding.

• Avoiding physical activity. There are diets which discourage exercising. Yes, exercise is low in the treatment chain for weight loss, and the mindset believing otherwise is often highly disruptive to nutritional goals. However, there are dozens of reasons why exercise is invaluable for health and wellness, and even reinforces the total wellness mindset. Education and the availability of coaching can help establish a balance.

• Does not offer other health benefits. Any complete nutritional programme, weight loss or otherwise, should be primarily concerned with improving the health outcomes of its members — from healthy skin, to mind, organs, muscles, rest, systems and more, not only weight loss.

• You have no path of dining with family and friends. Even if you are controlling your intake you should be able to find a best fit for a meal or two, or that special occasion. A proper diet should be the beginning of a new lifestyle and therefore be sustainable.

Make good choices

To live fully, healthily, and pain-free for as long as possible, avoid these lifestyle choices and avoid diet programmes which have the above characteristics.

Make good choices, stop spending on sickness and giving your money to people who are happy getting wealthy on your barest survival as a member of the species.

We live in a glorious time where food choices, once unimagined by emperors, are within a 30-minute journey of the average person. Knowledge, planning, support, and discipline are all that separate you from your best chances of well-being.

Start today, change is worth the effort. Let this be the beginning of a whole new journey for you, filled with new findings, flavour, fun, and fitness.

Fitz-George Rattray is the director of Intekai Academy, which is focused on helping people live a healthy lifestyle through nutrition and weight management. If you are interested in losing weight or living a healthier lifestyle, give them a call at 876-863- 5923, or visit their website at intekaiacademy.org.