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Keeping A Healthy Lifestyle On Food Intake

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Introduction Our bodies need certain things in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Food is a key ingredient to helping sustain our health throughout our life. When looking at our diet, we need to look beyond total calories consumed. Instead, we need to break the foods down into the different molecules that provide our body the proper nutrients to thrive and grow. Macronutrients are required by our bodies to properly function, and are needed for growth and energy. These macronutrients consist of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates which we obtain from the foods we eat. Tracking food intake is one way to analyze how food consumption meets, exceeds or falls short of recommended values. Through behavior modification and small, specific goals, positive dietary changes can help maintain long term health. Proteins are the building blocks of our bodies. From DNA to muscles, protein is a major part of our bodies. Protein is found in meats, poultry, dairy, nuts, and fish. Each gram of protein we eat consists of 4 calories. Proteins are made up of amino acids, known as the building blocks of proteins. There are 20 amino acids, 9 of which are essential, since they are only obtained from the food in our diet. The other 11 amino acids are considered non-essential because our bodies have the ability to create these amino acids. Lipids, or fats, are important to our bodies. Lipids in our diet come from foods such as meats, nuts, dairy and oils. Each gram

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