Consuming Food In Moderation

Low-quality foods may meet or surpass your caloric needs, yet not meet your nutritional needs. Eat these foods too often and you could end up gaining weight and feeling unhealthy. By moderating the amount you eat from each food group, you can get a nutritionally balanced diet with less risk of consuming excess calories. Moderation also allows you to indulge in your favorite treats occasionally without harming your health.

Determining Your Caloric Needs

Estimating your daily caloric needs helps you determine how much you should eat to stay healthy. To maintain your current weight, you'll need to meet all your nutritional needs within this amount of calories. To find your caloric requirement, start by multiplying your current weight by 10. Next, add on 20 to 30 percent of that number if you're sedentary, or 50 percent if you're moderately active, Richard Stockton College instructs. If you weight 140 lbs. and you're moderately active, for example, your formula would be 140 x 10 + 700 = 2,100. Next, add on the average number of calories you burn daily through intentional exercise. If you burn a total of 1,500 calories weekly by working out, your daily average is 1,500 / 7 = 214 calories. The total daily calorie needs in this example, then, would be 2,314.

Grains, Meat and Dairy

The average American requires 2,000 calories daily. Within this calorie limit, you should eat 6 oz. of grains, 5.5 oz. of meat or beans, 3 cups of dairy foods and 6 tsp. of healthy oils like olive and peanut oil every day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture advises. No more than half the grains you eat should be refined grain products, such as white bread or pastry. At least half should come from whole-grain products like whole-grain bread and brown rice. Limit beef, pork and lamb to 18 oz. weekly and opt for lean poultry and fish instead. Following these guidelines helps prevent you from getting excess calories from simple carbohydrates and saturated fats, both of which may harm your health if you eat them in excess.

Vegetables and Fruits

If you need 2,000 calories daily, you'll should eat 4 cups of vegetables and 2.5 cups of fruit every day, according to the USDA's MyPyramid website. For complete nutrition, your body needs a variety of vegetables and fruits. Instead of overindulging in one type, choose balanced quantities from the green, red, yellow/orange, blue/purple and white/tan color groups. Every week, you should aim to get 3 cups of dark green vegetables, 2 cups of orange vegetables, 3 cups of starchy vegetables like potatoes and peas and 6.5 cups of other vegetables, along with 3 cups of legumes like lentils and chickpeas.

Snacks and Treats

Eating the amounts of food from each group the USDA recommends should meet your nutritional needs and most of your caloric needs. By following these guidelines for a 2,000-calories-a-day diet, you'll have 267 discretionary calories daily, which can come from any food group. If you need more than 2,000 calories daily, you'll need slightly more from each food group, but you'll also have more discretionary calories. Ideally, your discretionary calories should come from nutrient-rich foods like whole grains and vegetables. No more than half should come from foods with added sugar, like candy, cake and ice cream, University of Alabama-Birmingham health experts recommend. Limit fried foods, like potato chips, French fries and fried chicken to no more than twice a week.