Trying to lose weight or keeping tabs on your health status, ask yourself this: “Is my plan helping me achieve my health goals?”

#FitnessGoals is always a hot topic—one that trends very easily at that. But more than being a trendy topic, getting or staying fit is a legit concern that we need to start paying attention to (yes, aesthetics aside).

So whether you’re trying to lose weight or just keeping tabs on your health status, what you eat should match your fitness needs. Ask yourself: “Is my plan helping me achieve my health goals?”

Here’s a rundown of top fitness goals and the diet plan that goes best with them:

For Weight Loss

You can’t possibly expect overnight success if you are targeting to lose weight. You need to work at it in a gradual, steady manner—starting from a firm resolve to shed those extra pounds and committing to whatever it takes to make it happen. So yes, changing your eating habits (read: saying no to unhealthy snacks in between meals) is an absolute must.

You can either cut down on your daily intake of calories, carbohydrates, fat and protein based on a point system (like the Weight Watchers program) or break up your food intake in multiple small meals instead of three large meals (like the Weight Loss Grail plan).

The key is to find out the healthy weight for your height and body type and choose a plan that will help you achieve just that.

Diet in a Bottle

What’s in those smoothies that people tote from their favorite store or make at home? Most smoothies are made with soy or skim milk, fresh or frozen fruit and yogurt. Meanwhile, there’s your green smoothie from organic green, leafy vegetables and an assortment of fruits.

There are commercial weight loss programs (like Slim Fast) that let you slurp on your smoothies with a guaranteed drop of 1 to 2 pounds per week. How? The idea is to keep high calories at bay by substituting cooked meals with specially made shakes and food bars, along with a 500-calorie meal per day.

Avoiding Heart Disease and Other Health Complications

Your desire for normal blood pressure and healthy levels of cholesterol and triglycerides can be addressed by diet plans that are high in fiber, with medium levels of protein and higher levels of whole carbs.

A DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet plan for instance aims to lower your salt intake to level off the amount of sodium in your bloodstream. 

Vegetarian Diet

A vegetarian diet can help you lower your risk for heart disease, hypertension, cancer, diabetes and obesity, among others by including food that’s low in bad saturated fat. Meanwhile, it’s high in fiber and antioxidants, so it can also be a popular choice for those looking for a healthier diet. 

Not all vegetarian diets restrict you from eating something else other than vegetables. You may choose from the following diets whose levels of vegetarianism fairly differ from one another:

• Vegetarian, Does not eat any kind of meat: beef, pork, poultry, or fish.

• Vegan, Does not consume meat and its by-products (like broth or gelatin), as well as animal by-products (dairy, eggs, honey).

• Pescatarian / Pescetarian / Pesco-vegetarian, Does not eat red meat (found in beef, pork, lamb and venison), poultry and fowl but consumes fish and seafood, as well as eggs and dairy.

For Bulking Up

If you want to gain weight, build muscle, increase your strength or all of the above, your best bet is to increase your calorie intake. 

Control your weight increase so that the extra muscle you get is free of unnecessary body fat. Under a bulk-up diet plan, you have the license to eat smaller meals consisting of carbs (complex and fibrous), protein and healthy fat more often.

Being healthy is a choice that only you can make. And because your body is only as good as what you put in it, make sure the calories you take in are well worth it.

*Remember to always consult with your doctor first before going on any kind of diet.