as I already mentioned food is more than just pure nutrition. It is also health and quality of living.
In this article I will walk through the jungle of massive product choice in supermarkets and try to find out what really leads to balanced nutrition.
First of all let us see what kind of things often went wrong in our everyday life:
What we often THINK because of our instincts:
- I want to save my power and exert myself as little as possible
- I want to eat. A lot, energy-rich and right now
- My health is not compromised. This affects only other.
But what we also KNOW:
- Poor nutrition hurts my body. It makes me sick and fat.
- I want to feel comfortable with and in my body. That's the only option to stay permanently happy and powerful.
TYPICAL PROBLEMS in our everyday life nowadays:
1. You eat in between and in a hurry. 2. Bad nutrition plus stress makes you sick and fat. 3. Convenience Food damages health.
3 PRINCIPLES that could help:
1. Self-limitation: Create a diet plan and simply adapt your nutrition. As an example you can orientate yourself to the food pyramid of the USDA. ( Even though I would recommend less meat and much more fruit than they do)
You will definitely automatically eat much more fruits than you did before. Promised!
My BEST TIPS:
- Avoid every extreme form of nutrition. A BALANCED nutrition should be your goal. No shame if this still includes ( a small amount of) sweeties and convenience food from time to time.
- Plan regulary meal(times). If not you will eat much more in the end.
- Use natural and fresh food
- Cook by yourself because then you know exactly what is actually in your meal :)
WHY HEALTHY NUTRITION?
Well nobody wants to be ill right? So we all want to avoid illnesses. And a healthy/balanced nutrition is number one on your list to reach this goal! booom!
Let me give you a short list of the most frequent illnesses nowadays:
Stress-related Illnesses:
- headache and neck pain
- heartburn ( the right nutrition can definitely avoid it)
- allodromy
Diseases of affluence:
Why? Because everything and everyone in our society has become so convenient. Most of the buildings have an elevator - no need to take the stairs. Most of the supermarkets have its own car park - no need to drive by bike or walk. So there's a lack of physical activity in our everyday life.
Convenience food - no need to cook. And it also makes you loose your consciousness about balanced nutrition!
We all have become so lazy! This often leads to the following diseases:
- overweight
- hypertension
- diabetes
But I guess to avoid diseases is not even the number one argument which leads most of the people to healthy nutriton and sports. Recently I heard someone saying in an interview: " Yeah health. We all want to be healthy. Thats OK. But to be honest the main reason why we all do this is to become more attractive. In our society you NEED to be attractive and good looking to become succesful"
And I guess thats the most convincing argument! If you want to have a good appearance it isn't enough just to have a slim body.
Only the ones who eat right and gather the right vital substances and have a certain amount of fitness become attractive, powerful and as a consequence succesful!
HOW ABOUT WEIGHT?
What is your ideal weight? The most common indicator to measure it is the body mass index (BMI). Here's the formula:
< 19 = Underweight
19 - 25 = Normal weight
25 - 30 = Overweight
30 - 35 = Adiposity I
35 - 40 = Adiposity II
> 40 = Adiposity III
As a rule of thumb it can be said just make sure your BMI is under 25 an everything is fine ;-)
ENERGY BALANCE
Your energy balance is like a bank account: If you deposit more than you withdraw, you have an excess. If you withdraw more than you deposit your account gets lower and lower.
Its the same with your fat reserves!
It can be said that a 70kg person who works in a bureau spends about 2100 calories a day ( without sports or some extra work).Now you can calculate and adapt your nutrition considering the amount of your daily calories depending on what you want: gain, maintain or loose some weight....
Just an example:
If you eat a complete lunch menu at Mc Donalds it will be about 1300 calories. Plus a bottle of Coke in your bureau ( 1litre = 420 calories) and a pizza in the evening (about 800 calories) and booom you are on a daily amount of 2500 calories faster than you could even recognize!
This is a daily plus of 400 calories which are transferred into50 gram fat tissue in your body. Just 50 gram? Watch out! There are 30 days in a month and this would make you gaining about 1-2 kg per month!
For your energy balance it doesn't matter if your energy comes from pizza or granary bread. ( But for your Vital Balance it does!!!!)
If you want to spend more energy, here's a list of succesful and less succesful activities considering spending energy ( with the amount of how much calories you burn in brackets). Based on a 70kg person.
LESS SUCCESFUL:
- walk to the copy machine in your bureau ( 6 calories)
- 30 minutes homework ( 32 calories)
- 10 minutes on phone ( 17 calories)
- 60 minutes watching TV (69 calories)
- 30 minutes Sex (50 calories)
SUCCESFUL:
- 30 minutes Running 10 km/h ( 380 calories)
- 30 minutes Fitness training (280 calories)
- 30 minutes riding bicycle 15 - 20 km/h ( 208 calories)
- 30 minutes Walking ( 200 calories)
- 60 minutes go for a walk ( 120 calories)
Somehow I am bit disappointed about the Sex :D. Actually the source I get this from is very reliable. Maybe I will research this another time ;-)
WHAT do you eat there? Your 3 energy suppliers: carbs, protein and fat
1) Carbs - Sugar - The Facts
- Carbs are different forms of sugar. E.g. table sugar. And even fructose tastes "sugarsweet". The long-chained sugar especially amylum are decomposed, like all the other sugars in your body as well, to dextrose.
-Your body can save sugar in your liver and your muscles and whenever it is necessary use it for energy supply. 1 gram carbs is equal to 4,1 gram kilocalories (kcal)
- When you eat sugar or amylum, your body produces insulin, to lead the sugar into your muscles. This limits your fat reduction because now sugar is burnt instead of fat. ( Maybe you ever heard the idea of the famous "low carb diet" and now you have an idea why this could make sense when you want to burn fat)
- sugar is burnt when it comes to physical activities especially those that requires a lot of exertion in a short time. Thats why endurance athletes love every kind of sugar.
- Excess sugar will be transformed to fat in your body ( for example on your hips)
Pure carbs suppliers are:
all farina products (noodles, bread, cornflakes,muesli), potatoes, rice, honey, table sugar
2) Fats - The Facts
- Fats are actually different fatty acids. They can be solid ( e.g butter) or liquid ( e.g. oil)
- 1 gram fat is equal to 9,1 gram kilocalories. It's a perfect energy storage.... on your hips!
- Fats are important because they enable us the ingestion of the fat-soluble vitamins A,D,E and K
Pure fat suppliers are: butter and different oil
3) Protein - The Facts
-Protein consists of 20 different amino acids. In different combinations they are the necessary blocks for our whole body
- Protein is the base substance for the messengers in your nervous system.
- 1 gram protein is ( like sugar) equal to 4,1 gram kcal. But protein is metabolized very complex thats why 10% of the energy are blown out in form of heat ( thermogenesis)
- protein leads to muscle building and thats why I love it beside my strength training
- protein saturates excellent thats why everyone loves it who's "on diet".
Good protein suppliers are: lean meat or fish, eggs, soy
RULES FOR YOUR 3 ENERGY SUPLLIERS:
1. CARBS:
- eat carbs before or after physical activity. Then your body can directly burn the sugar instead of saving it
- eat whole-grain instead of white flour. More dietary fibre and minerals!
Fit-maker here: (whole grain-) noodles al dente, muesli, fruits, vegetables, dark bittersweet chocolate and whole grain products
Ill-maker here: Croissant, pizza, cake, jelly bears and white flour products
2. FATS:
Good and poor fats: trans fats are bodily injury!
With carbs you wont hurt your body that fast.It goes much faster with (the wrong) fats. Thats why we need to have a look at the different forms of fats:
Saturated fatty acids:
They are contained in animal fats, so in milk, butter and meat. Saturated fatty acids are the black sheeps among the fats. If you eat to much of them it can be carcinogenic
Monounsaturated fatty acids:
You like it fatty? Then most of your fat better comes from olives or avocados. They contain a lot of monounsaturated fatty acids which can even protect your health!
Omega-3 and Omega-6-fatty acids:
More fats we like are polyunsaturated fatty acids. Here we differ between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.Both are important, but their ratio is vital for our health. Nowadays we usually have an excess of Omnega-6 fatty acids in our food.
Omega-3 fatty acids have become rare. They are in salt-water fish, venison and different sorts of oil (olive,walnut,linseed or pumpkin seed)
A good omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is 1:3 ( and not 1:12 which is really common nowadays)
Trans fats:
As I already mentioned: Trans fats are bodily injury. They are killer! They arise in industrial manufacturing processes and high temperatures in the fryer (hardened fat). You need to avoid these fats! They taste like shit and are carciongenic. The bakery is full of fats we do not want and need.
Rules for Fats:
- use Omega-3-rich oil
- buy whole grain bread and please avoid trans fats. You better not even go in a bakery shop
- do not eat fritter
- avoid convenience food. Often they are full of poor fats
Fit-maker here:
Omega-3-fatty acids in olive-,walnut-,linseed- or pumpkin seed oil, avocados, almonds, walnuts
Ill-maker here: Omega-6 fatty acids like corn or sunflower oil, hardened and trans fats, fritter and convenience food
3. PROTEIN
Here it is really simple since protein is just a good thing! The 20 different amino acids are all essential for our body and protein saturates excellent! Im impressed by protein.
Fit-maker here:
lean meat, fish, potatoes combined with eggs, walnuts, lowfat quark and legumes like beans, lentils or peas
Ill-maker here:
They only exist in combination with poor fats e.g currywurst
Pheww.... you see nutrition is a very complex topic. I tried to make this article as short as possible to give you just the basics. I hope I haven't filled you with too much information.
My last sentence to the basics will be: In addition to that all.... always make sure you drink enough WATER during the day!!!
HOW TO ADAPT YOUR NUTRITION IF YOU WANT TO GAIN MUSCLES?
Well, remember my goals in the first post? I don't want to focus too much on these in this article right now. Therefore I just found 2 videos which includes the top 20 muscle foods and the 5 biggest mistakes ( which is really interesting)
TOP 20 MUSCLE FOODS
TOP 5 WORST MISTAKES (for building muscle)
For the ones who do not want to watch this video. Here are they:
1.Not eating enough calories
2. Not eating enough carbs
3.Not pre-cooking your meals in advance
4. Eating crazy amounts of protein
5. Permanent bulking
My biggest mistake is #2 not eating enough carbs. Thats why I still gain more and more muscles but not muscle mass. Sometimes I just dont want to feel like a porker no matter how much energy I have spent that day :D
Last but not least here are my current body facts ( end of March 2014):
Will keep you updated soon!
XO XO,
Christian
