There are many different diets that try to sell themselves as the answer to all your problems and the way to be healthy. But in fact, there are a number of different kinds of healthy diet. These are not just alternatives, but entirely different types of diet with different merits and outcomes. Which is the best and most suitable for you depends on your circumstances and on what you are trying to achieve.

Of course, there are countless individual diets, some strictly defined and others made up of loose guidelines. However, most of them will roughly divide into three categories.

Everyday Healthy Diet

This sort of healthy diet is best suited for people who don’t want to be strict about dieting, but who want to ensure they remain in good health and don’t gain excessive weight. It will rarely if ever involve any form of strict regime. It is largely down to common sense, such as enjoying treats only in moderation and eating a variety of foods including plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Those who want to take their diet a bit more seriously but still stick to a non-strict, everyday sort of diet can follow specific tips and guidelines from respectable sources online or in print.

Weight Loss Diet

This is the most common form of healthy diet, and unlike everyday healthy eating it usually involve entering into a strict regime. Often, it involves taking up particular diets or plans in which certain types of food and allowances for calories and fat are prescribed. It also includes more specialist options, such as diets that limit carbohydrate intake in order to encourage the body to burn off fat.

Some of these are stricter than others. For example, certain diet options will give strict meal plans or prohibit certain types of food entirely. Others will simply provide limits on specific factors such as fat or calorie intake, and then leave you with relative freedom as long as you keep within those limits.

Exercise Diet

This type of healthy diet promotes exercise and fitness. Like weight loss diets, it will usually involve a stricter and more specifically defined regime. However, factors such as calorie intake may very likely be less limited than in weight loss diets. Instead, it will promote taking in sufficient calories to fuel a great deal of exercise, and often it will include supplements or particular kinds of food that contain protein to aid muscle development. For example, using egg whites as part of exercise diets is commonplace, and these can be easily sourced from online retailers such as http://www.proteinfoodsdirect.com.

Exercise diets may allow sufficient calories to fuel the required level of physical activity, but there will likely still be other limits in place. For example, excessive fat intake will almost certainly still be something to avoid and something on which limits are placed. This helps to promote muscle development and definition, and helps prevent weight gain without cutting calories that could be vital for exercise.