Nutrition can be daunting subject. The more you learn about it, seemingly the more complex it gets because as you learn more about nutrition, then you have to learn about biology. Then to really understand biology you then also have to learn chemistry. The next thing you know, you just want to lose weight and you are hearing people talk about complex carbohydrates, polysaturated fats, ketones, and other terms that mean absolutely nothing to most people. I firmly believe that in order to really achieve change in your body (to lose weight, gain muscle, add stamina etc.) you MUST at least understand some the very basics of nutrition. I also believe the people’s lack of basic understanding leads to people failing at their diets, and or gaining their weight back as soon as they are done. More on all of that in future posts. For now, I’d like to try to give a simple lesson on what everybody should understand about nutrition. This is the Cliff’s notes, very light overview of nutrition. If you are looking for advanced biochem, you wont’ find it below.
Think of your body as an engine. At the most basic level it produces energy to move you around, let you think and stay alive. Food is the fuel that we use to supply our bodies with energy, and different foods and types of foods have different amounts of energy stored in them. The amount of energy in a given food/drink can be expressed in calories.
Introduce the calorie. In my opinion this is the most misunderstood word in nutrition/dieting. A calorie is not a “thing”; it is a unit of measure for energy. Imagine degrees of temperature for a moment. You can’t look under a microscope and see this thing called a degree, because it is not a thing at all. A degree is the unit of energy. Calories are very similar, and when you eat food it gives your body potential energy that you can quantify with a calorie value. Most people use about 2000 calories every day. Obviously this can change based on size, activity level, genetics, and several other factors.
Keeping things simple, most foods are made up of carbohydrates (sugars), proteins and fats. Carbs are easy for your body to break down and provide energy quickly into your blood stream. Think of carbs when you eat sweet food, pastas, breads, and grains. Proteins are building blocks and are a little bit harder for our body to break down quickly. When you eat meat/poultry/fish/nuts/beans you are eating foods high in protein. Fats are generally used to store energy long term and are slow to break down. When you are eating greasy/oily/butter/cream rich foods, you are consuming foods high in fat. It’s important to understand that we eat carbs, fats and proteins, so they can be broken down into more simple chemicals that your body can use to create energy or to build it’s own proteins/fats/ and carbs. Fats are the most dense with energy, with protein and carbs coming int 2nd and 3rd place. One gram of fat has about 9 calories, while 1 gram of protein and one of carbohydrates have about 4 calories.
Alright, now we have the basic frame work, so now we get to the useful information. What happens if you don’t consume as many calories as you burn; or if you consume too many? When you have more calories than you can use, it creates fat cells that store those extra calories. When your body needs more energy, it can the break down the fat and release the energy. In fact, just one pound of fat has 3500 calories of potential energy! The good news is that this makes it SIMPLE to lose weight. With diet and exercise you all you have to do is burn more calories than you take in and you will burn fat. For the most part it doesn’t matter where you get your calories (carbs, proteins, fats), your body sees calories as calories. These days everybody is going crazy with the low carb craze, 10 years ago it was low fat. Calories are calories, and if you take in too many you will put on fat…period. Don’t look for the magic bullet. It doesn’t exist as badly as we want them to. I don’t believe in being a calorie counter. You shouldn’t have to keep a notebook with every calorie added together carefully. I do, however, believe that you should be aware of how many calories you consume. Read labels, go to websites of restaurants and see what you are eating!
More to come soon, I promise. I don’t want this post to go on for too long, but I hope that it least give you a basic understanding of basic nutrition.