Healthy diet for a 25 year old male

25 year old males have specific dietary needs.

As a 25 year old male, you are at an important stage of your life. You aren't a child anymore. You have grown up. It's time to start looking after your health like an adult. What does a diet like that look like?

This diet will help you to prepare for the best life that you can live. Give yourself the fuel to make a significant contribution on this world. At 25 years of age, you need to address the health issues that you have. Are you carrying an extra amount of weight? Do you feel sluggish? Now is the time to set the tone for your best life.

Food is no longer about what tastes good. Your health starts to become more about what food is actually doing to your body. Discover what you should eat to set the tone for great health, energy and productivity for years to come.

Today's habits are tomorrow's rewards.

The healthy diet for a 25 year old male

1. Skip breakfast: Don't flood your body with sugar
2. First meal: Eat 5 different whole fruit and vegetables
3. Second meal: Choose 3 of any of these protein options
4. Third meal: A healthy snack (nuts, grains, fruit, dairy or meat listed)
5. Drink lots of plain water (See the healthy additions to change things up)

Diet chart of the healthiest meal plan for 25 year old men

I made a summary of this diet in an easy-to-follow diet chart to make things easy. Share it on your social media or right click (long press on mobile) to save it the chart. 

If you want to use this meal plan elsewhere (like on your own blog or website), provide credit back to us (either to saspotters.blogspot.com or this specific page).

Easy-to-follow diet chart

1. Skip breakfast: Don't flood your body with sugar

'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' is a term invented to sell more breakfast cereals by marketing companies.

In fact, your body has all of the energy that it needs to wake up, work mentally and perform physically. Energy is stored in your liver as glycogen and as fat in your body. If you don't give your body time to burn through these energy stores, you overload your body with calories. This leads to many problems of its own.

What happens when you eat too often?

1. Excess nutrients are stored as fat. 
2. Your body gets better at making fat and worse at using it.
3. Insulin is constantly released to counteract frequent sugar consumption. 
4. You develop a resistance to insulin. 
5. This will decrease energy levels and increase hunger levels.
6. Your digestive system does not get a break and cannot go through the important periods of self-recovery. 
7. This can lead to digestive issues.
8. You feel sluggish as soon as you don't have sugar in your system. 
9. This leads to an unhealthy, emotional connection to food.

Our bodies are wonderfully made. They are designed to go through periods without food. In fact, several important processes can only happen in the absence of food. Periods of food deprivation are good for you.

What happens when I don't eat for a certain period of time every day?

1. Your body learns to use fat for energy (which is a much more sustainable source of energy).
2. Autophagy starts to kick in. This is an important part of your bodily processes that can only happen when you don't eat for some time. During this process, your body starts to break down damaged, toxic cells and pathogens and use them as energy.
3. The hunger hormone ghrelin is released. Ghrelin stimulates human growth hormone, which builds muscle, develops the brain and improves physical recovery.
4. Mental performance improves because your body can dedicate all of its resources to performance. It takes a lot of energy to digest food.

If your body is so damaged that you struggle to go through a period of time without food, now is the time to correct that. Start with an hour of no food after you wake up. Once you get comfortable with that, increase it to two hours.

Build yourself up to the point where you go through a period of 16 hours every day without eating food (including your 8 hours of sleep). You will quickly adapt to eating all of your food within an 8 hour window.

Learn more about fasting for your health from Medical News Today.

Skip breakfast to improve your health.

2. First meal: Eat 5 different whole fruit and vegetables

Now that your body is more dependent on its own fat stores for energy, you need to make sure that you give it the kinds of nutrients that it can't get from fat stores. These nutrients include vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber and other plant compounds.

It can be hard to memorize all of these nutrients and make sure that you get enough of them every day. The best way to do this is to eat 5 different fresh fruit and vegetables every day.

You don't necessarily have to do this for your first meal. You can have 5 fruit and vegetables as your second or third meal. It is nice to do it as your first meal, though, because this ensures that you don't skip this very important step.

Will fruit or vegetables load my body with sugar?

They don't load your body with sugar. The sugar in fruit and vegetables are locked within hard-to-digest fiber. This prolongs the time it takes before the sugar is released into your blood stream. Slow digestion of fruits and vegetables give you a steady supply of energy that does not drop as quickly as other food. This is why fruit and vegetables score so high when it comes to feeling full and reduced cravings for more food.

Why do the fruit and vegetables need to be raw?

Raw fruit and vegetables are better for mental health than processed fruit and veggies. A lot of the nutrients are lost when you cook them.

Vitamin B and Vitamin C are water soluble. This means that they are lost in the water when they are cooked. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble. They are lost when foods are fried. Minerals are water soluble. Heat also lowers the nutrient count of healthy food. This is why it is important to eat enough raw food for your overall health.

You can have cooked food in your other two meals. Dedicate this meal to eating food the way that nature intended. Our bodies are made to eat food the way that it is found in nature.

Nature's way is the best way.

Is a smoothie or juiced fruit a good replacement for whole fruit and vegetables?

While fruit and vegetable smoothies do have their own benefits, eating the whole fruit or vegetable is much better. It teaches you to associate good food with real food. Whole foods take longer to digest and stop you from eating junk food afterwards. These foods sit for longer in your digestive system and feed good gut bacteria (which make important nutrients and kill off bad bacteria).

Will eating too much fruit make me fat?

Fruit does not lead to weight gain. In a large group of people who ate nothing but fruit and nuts, everybody lost a large amount of fat and improved their health significantly. It is important to include protein in your diet (more on that below) to give your body a complete nutrient profile.

List of fruit and vegetables to eat

Eat 5 different fruit and vegetables any day. You can choose your favorites - or whatever is available to you. Mix it up and alternate your fruit and vegetables every day to get all of the important nutrients.

Here are the best fruit to eat:

1. Grapefruit
2. Peaches
3. Pineapple
4. Avocado
5. Blueberries
6. Apples
7. Pomegranate
8. Mango
9. Strawberries
10. Cranberries
11. Lemons
12. Durian
13. Watermelon
14. Olives
15. Blackberries
16. Oranges
17. Bananas
18. Grapes
19. Guava
20. Papaya
21. Cherries

Here are the best vegetables to eat:

1. Spinach
2. Lettuce
3. Carrots
4. Broccoli
5. Garlic
6. Brussel sprouts
7. Kale
8. Green peas
9. Swiss chard
10. Ginger
11. Asparagus
12. Cabbage
13. Sweet potatoes
14. Collard greens

Choose natural. Choose healthy.

3. Second meal: Choose 3 of any of these protein options

The biggest problem with a fruit and vegetable only diet is the lack of protein and other nutrients that we get from animal foods. This can lead to a nutrient deficiency, lack of energy, a decrease in bone density, anemia, and a hampered immune system.

To make sure that you get all of the nutrients that your body needs, add at least three portions of protein from an animal source.

List of healthy animal proteins:

The best protein sources for you to choose from are:

1. Eggs (eat the yolk along with the egg white)
2. Chicken
3. Pork
4. Beef
5. Fish
6. Turkey
7. Seafood like shellfish prawns and shrimp
8. Cheese
9. Yogurt
10. Milk

You need protein to rebuild tissue.

4. Third meal: A healthy snack (the nuts, grains, fruit, dairy or meat as listed)

The first meal gives your body most of the micro nutrients that you need. The second meal makes up for what the first meal is missing as far as macro nutrients and micro nutrients are concerned. The third and last meal for the day fills a big part of what your diet that is lacking: calories.

You can run into a lot of negative health effects if you don't eat enough calories consistently.

Health risks of restricting calories too much

1. Slow metabolism
2. Low energy and fatigue 
3. Mental decline 
4. Decreased physical performance
5. Emotional distress such as anxiety and depression
6. Lack of motivation to stick to a healthy lifestyle
7. Tendencies to do unhealthy activities
8. Fat is harder to burn away. Your body will hold onto extra fat stores to restore balance
9. Nutrient deficiencies
10. Weaker immune system
11. Getting sick more often
12. Hormonal imbalances (Woman may miss their periods and men may experience lower testosterone production)
13. Reduced fertility in both genders
14. Inability to sleep properly
15. Weak muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, tendons and connective tissue

Disadvantages of calorie restriction

It is okay to eat fewer calories than what you burn from time to time, but eating too few calories consistently can lead to the above adverse health effects. Make sure that you give your body all the nutrients that it needs.

On this diet for 25 year old males, you will ensure that you get everything that your body needs by having a third meal that gives you a variety of good foods to choose from.

Will I lose weight if I eat a third meal every day?

If the primary reason for this diet is for you to lose weight, you will still do so - even if you eat this third meal. You will lose weight because of the intermittent fasting (going for an extended period of time without food), ample fiber from fresh food and the good protein sources.

This meal is not the opportunity for you to eat whatever you want. You still need to avoid unhealthy food that can harm your health.

As a third meal, you can combine any of the foods from the first two meals or choose from the other healthy snacks listed below.

How many snacks can I have and stay healthy?

You can have as many snacks as you feel like you need - as long as you combine them all into one meal. Calorie restriction (making sure that you don't eat more than you need) comes into play in two other ways in this diet.

Firstly, you don't eat for 16 hours every day because you skip your first meal. Secondly, the fresh plants and healthy proteins will satisfy a large part of your hunger so that your body won't crave too much additional food.

Think of this meal as your reward for following this diet so consistently. 

At 25 years of age, you need to give yourself all of the nutrients that you need to work your way to the top in your career, build a family and maintain a healthy exercise routine. Your nutritional needs are different for each individual. That is why you get to eat your choice of snacks in this meal until you are fully satisfied.

You can have as much as you want of the foods listed in the first two meals. You can also have any combination of the following healthy snacks:

List of snacks that are good for your health

Here is a list of snacks that you can choose from:

1. Nuts (any kind, unsalted, not roasted)
2. Smoothies
3. Peanut butter and multi grain bread
4. Kale chips
5. Dark chocolate
6. Cucumber or celery sticks with hummus
7. Oats and honey (don't use unhealthy sweeteners)
8. Muesli (check for added sugar)
9. Any seeds
10. Chia pudding
11. Beef jerky
12. A protein shake (or a meal replacement shake)

You can mix things up. How's about a bowl of yogurt and mixed berries? What about slices of an apple and peanut butter?

These snacks are good for your health.

5. Drink lots of plain water (See the healthy additions to change things up)

Three quarters of the American population is chronically dehydrated. Most of us aren't drinking enough water.

What does dehydration cause?

1. Fatigue and a lack of energy
2. Sleepiness
3. A slow metabolism 
4. Less fat is burned for energy and you crave more calories
5. Unhealthy cravings for nicotine, caffeine, sugar, sweeteners etc. (that can make dehydration even worse)
6. Moodiness, anxiety, depression, frustration, anger and listlessness
7. Inability to think clearly, concentrate or do simple mental tasks
8. Toxin buildup in the body
9. Kidney stones

Dehydration is dangerous.

Make it a priority to drink more water.

I have found that you can reduce the cigarettes that smokers smoke if they drink a full glass of water whenever they crave a cigarette. They reduced the amount of cigarettes smoked by half! A lot of our issues can be traced back to dehydration. We often mistake dehydration for a craving for something else.

How to stay hydrated:

1. Carry a water bottle wherever you go
2. Keep a jug of water at your desk
3. Incorporate water into your morning routine
4. Drink a glass of water with every meal
5. Drink a glass of water when you have a craving (check if dehydration is the problem)
6. Avoid beverages that are high in sugar, artificial ingredients, carbonated and alcohol (these beverages cause dehydration)

Stay hydrated.

It is possible to overdo it, too. You can drink too much water.

How can I make water less boring?

You should drink plain water most of the time. If you desire something to add a little flavor, from time to time, here are some great additives that you can use sparingly.

Make water less boring

1. Add a squeeze of lemon juice for other health benefits
2. Drop a bag of green tea for more health benefits in your water
3. Put in some chopped fruit like apples, cucumber, oranges or strawberries

You will give your body all of the nutrients that it needs and burn fat while increasing your metabolism if you follow this diet at 25 years of age. Stay Strong!

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