Brief reasons for recommending a healthy diet

There are essentially three key reasons for recommending a healthy diet: it reduces the likelihood of getting sick, improves daily well-being, and enhances overall quality of life in the long term. There is no mysticism or fancy claims involved; these are all tangible benefits that ordinary people can experience.

I used to think that a healthy diet was just another form of “intellectual tax” imposed through marketing—forcing people to eat grass, give up bubble tea, and avoid hot pot. What’s the point of living like that? It wasn’t until last year, when I helped my mother manage her blood sugar levels, that I realized things weren’t actually like that. My mom used to eat refined white rice for every meal and also loved drinking millet porridge with two tablespoons of sugar added. Her fasting blood sugar levels were always around 7. Later, a friend from the nutrition department helped her adjust her diet plan. She wasn’t asked to completely give up staple foods; instead, one-third of her white rice was replaced with oats and quinoa, and no sugar was allowed in her porridge. She also started eating an extra plate of steamed vegetables every day. In just two months, her blood sugar levels stabilized below 6, and now she can dance in the square for two hours straight without feeling tired at all.

Don’t think this is something only middle-aged and elderly people need to worry about. Last month, I went with my best friend to get her test results. She’s 29 years old, and her triglyceride levels were twice the normal range. The doctor said that if she continued to eat and drink recklessly for another six months, she would develop moderate fatty liver. She also mentioned that in the past, she would feel extremely sleepy every afternoon around three or four o’clock, and even drinking two cups of iced American coffee wouldn’t help. Later on, she didn’t resort to any extreme measures—she simply switched from ordering full-sugar bubble tea every day to ones with three parts sugar or freshly squeezed lemon tea. She also asked for an extra serving of vegetables and half less oil and salt when ordering takeout. In just over a month, she said that she no longer needed coffee to stay alert in the afternoons, and her test results last week had already returned to normal ranges.

Of course, these days there’s a lot of confusion around what constitutes a healthy diet, and there’s no need to stick rigidly to any one particular formula: Proponents of a low-carb diet recommend reducing the intake of refined carbohydrates, and the effects on stabilizing blood sugar levels are indeed visible. This diet is particularly suitable for people with insulin resistance or those who lead sedentary lifestyles, such as office workers ； The dietary guidelines for our country recommend a diet that focuses on grains and includes a balanced combination of meat and vegetables, making it particularly suitable for people who engage in significant daily physical activity and require an adequate supply of carbohydrates for energy ； Even if you follow a vegetarian diet, as long as you ensure you get enough B12 and high-quality protein, it’s still possible to maintain good health. The key is to find a lifestyle that suits you; there’s no need to make your life difficult just for the sake of staying healthy.

Uncle Zhang who lived next door to my family used to eat a lot of fatty food and always drink two liang of liquor with his meals. He had a stroke just after turning 50 and became paralyzed on the left side of his body; he stayed in the hospital for half a month. These days, doctors are very strict with my diet—every day it’s just whole grain rice with steamed fish. It takes me half a month to earn the right to eat just two slices of braised pork as a treat. Now that I’ve recovered enough to walk downstairs by myself, he always reminds me how worthless those fleeting cravings for food were in exchange for almost losing my life.

Of course, some people also say, “Life is short, so enjoy it while you can; eat whatever you want if that makes you happy.” And there’s nothing wrong with that, after all, everyone has different priorities in life. If you think that the pleasure of eating heavy takeaway food and drinking full-sugar bubble tea every day is more important than avoiding hospital visits in the future, then that’s completely fine. But I’ve seen too many people who, in their youth, ate and drank recklessly, and by the age of thirty or forty, were already regularly taking medications for high blood pressure and high uric acid levels. Even when friends invited them to a hot pot meal, they had to carefully calculate the Purine rine content. By that point, it was indeed too late to regret their habits.

To put it simply, there really aren’t all those fancy reasons behind following a healthy diet, and you don’t have to give up your favorite foods altogether. For example, if you want to eat hot pot, just go ahead and do so. There’s no need to use the same soy sauce and sesame oil mixture every time; you can try a different dressing with light soy sauce and red chili flakes instead, and it will still be delicious with less hassle. It’s just about making your life more comfortable in everyday situations, reducing the frequency of illnesses, and allowing you to eat whatever you want when you’re older, without having to avoid certain foods or restrictions. That’s basically it.