The Basics of Nutrition

By Ryan Miller; B.S. Biochemistry, NASM Certified Trainer

Nutrition is delicate, you have to treat it with respect. Nutrition can beat you in several ways. Eat too little, your weight loss will be unhealthy. Eat too much, your weight loss will be a figment of your imagination. Eat the wrong foods, your road to your goal can end up never ending.

Nutrition seems simple, but once you get around to it and give it a dedicated shot, you’ll find that it takes a bit of learning, but the feeling you get from having it down to a science is very rewarding. It can be frustrating when you have control of so many other things in your life, but you just can’t seem to get control of your body, which in today’s society is held in high importance.

Total weight control is entirely possible, you just have to know how to achieve it. My plan is to slowly educate you on nutrition and how to obtain the control I’m talking about through a series of monthly articles. Let’s get to article one, The Basics of Nutrition. As these articles progress, you can bet you’ll be reading more in depth information, detailed tips, and effective diet strategies. The following tips and information are just the beginning of what’s to come.

What is Food?

This should be an easy question right? Food is what you eat. Food is what you get when you are hungry. Food is something that has taste, something that satisfies you, something that gives you energy to live. Those are all explanations of what food is used for and what food does for you, but what exactly is it? What does food actually consist of? Certainly food must consist of thousands of materials, since there are thousands of tastes out there.

When it comes down to the makeup of food, well, natural food, there are only a minimal number of basic “ingredients” that make up your food. These are known as the macronutrients, and consist of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. These are the nutrients that provide your body with calories.

In fact, 1 gram of protein accounts for 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrate accounts for 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat accounts for 9 calories. As an example, let us say you are eating a food that contains 30 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbohydrates, and 10 grams of fat.

The total calorie count for this food would equate to:

(30g protein x 4 calories) + (50g carbohydrates x 4 calories) + (10g fat x 9 calories)

The total calories would then equal:

120 calories + 200 calories + 90 calories = 410 calories

What Does Food Do?

Food provides your body with the materials it needs to stay strong, repair itself after a time of stress or injury, and produce energy to power your daily processes. Different macronutrients serve different purposes throughout your body.

The Carb

The carbohydrate is your body’s preferred source of energy. Your body can most efficiently turn a carbohydrate into ATP, which is your body’s form of energy. Carbohydrates consist of sugar molecules and exist in simple and complex forms. The difference between a simple and complex carbohydrate lies within the molecular makeup of the carbohydrate.

Think of carbohydrates as chains of sugar molecules. For the body to use these chains, the chain needs to be broken apart into single links (glucose molecules). The longer the chain, the more complex the carbohydrate, because the longer it takes the body to breakdown the chain and utilize the individual links. These chains can also be branched as well, similar to the branches on a tree. The more branched, the more complex as well.

A basic example of a simple sugar is a single glucose molecule. There is no chain, only the single molecule of glucose. An example of a more complex carbohydrate is maltodextrin, which consists of a chain of glucose molecules. Maltodextrin is still fairly simple, but it is more complex than a single glucose molecule alone.

Why does this matter? Well, the simpler the carb, the more dramatic effect it has on your body as a result of its digestion. If you want immediate energy to burn, simple is the way to go. But for times when you aren’t going to be burning your carbs you ingest immediately, complex is best. The effects of simple and complex carbs on insulin production in the body will be the topic of my next article.

Simple carbs can be found in foods such as soda, candy, white bread, white pasta, fruit juice, and white rice. Complex carbs can be found in whole wheat breads, wheat pasta, fibrous vegetables, and brown rice.

The Protein

So carbs are your energy source. What is protein used for? Protein is the building block of almost every part of your body. We’ve all heard of amino acids, but few actually know what they are. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. On a molecular level, proteins are chains of amino acids known as polypeptide chains. The order of the amino acids making up the polypeptide chain determines the type of protein that chain will be. Different combinations of amino acids make proteins for hair, skin, organs, muscle, nerves, virtually your whole body.

But you’re in the gym, you’re not trying to repair your organs or skin, so we’re going to focus on using protein to build muscle. In order to build muscle, you need its building block, protein. Protein can be found in numerous foods, particularly meats, eggs, dairy products, and some beans. In order for your body to utilize protein, the protein source must contain all of the amino acids that are needed to make up protein, making the protein “complete”.

Vegetable sources are usually incomplete protein sources, meaning they do not contain all of the necessary amino acids to build your muscles. Meats, dairy, and eggs are sources of complete protein. These protein sources contain all of the necessary amino acids to build your muscle and should be your main source of protein in your diet.

Your body is least likely to use protein as an energy source, but it can be done if put in the right situation. Your body is able to break down its own muscle and use it for energy. This is something that we want to avoid, unless losing muscle is one of your goals.

The Fat

I always think of fat as the most misunderstood macronutrient. In our culture, being physically fat is something that nobody wants to be. Being physically fat is undesirable and unhealthy. When you hear the word fat, you associate it with the physical condition of being overweight or obese. Unfortunately for fat, it gets a bad wrap.

There are numerous types of fat, and fat is an energy source as well as necessary for certain bodily functions. I’ll start with the fats that deserve the bad wrap.

Trans fats are the most harmful form of fat. These are manmade fats and are known to cause harmful build up in certain areas of your body. These fats taste great, but aren’t worth your while.

Saturated fats are harmful, but only when overly consumed. You’ll notice that on your nutrition labels, a certain amount of saturated fat is recommended daily. These are found mainly in animal sources of food such as meats, eggs, and dairy. Saturated fats play a role in hormone regulation in your body. We are carnivores by nature, so don’t completely remove saturated fats from your diet.

Poly and monounsaturated fats are the fats that get the bad wrap. Yes, they are a fat, but no, they aren’t harmful for your body. These fats have numerous benefits to your health. When you hear about Omega 3, 6, or 9 fatty acids, think unsaturated fats. These fats will actually aid in your fat loss goals when ingested at the proper times and in the proper amounts. These fats can be found in fish, nuts, certain seeds, and certain fatty fruits and vegetables.

Putting it all Together

Give yourself a pat on the back, you now know more about what you eat than the average American. You can differentiate between a simple and complex carb, realize the importance of protein, and be confident that fat isn’t always a no no.

Now you have to put this information together and set up an easy to follow diet plan for yourself. You might know about the macronutrients, but in order to truly get it, you need to know how much to eat, and also when to eat what foods. There is no set of magic numbers that works for everyone, please keep this in mind when you hear or see a commercial that offers a diet program that isn’t individualized. There is no way that a diet for a 300 pound man will work for a 150 pound woman.

Diets need to be specific to you! Formulas exist in which you can plug in your age, weight, daily activity level, and other information to obtain what is known as your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is the number of calories you would burn if you were to lay in bed all day (if only life was so simple). This number is constant for you. Now comes the variable; your activity outside of lying in bed all day. You can only imagine how this can begin to differ among individuals. If you’d like to discuss an individualized diet, please email me at ryan@2020-wellness.com.

I’ll get more in depth on intake and timing in later articles. I’d highly recommend giving a diet program a try, it only takes a short period of time to form a habit. Get through the initial few weeks, and you’ll be set to go for a healthier life in which you control your body through your diet, not the other way around! Oh yeah, don’t worry, you can still eat tasty foods and achieve your goals, there are unlimited recipes that allow tasteful, healthy eating.