Nutrition 101
What is nutrition?
Most people just assume that "eating healthy" means eating foods that are low in fat, low in carbs, high protein but not too much, and no "junk food."
When we look at a nutrition label there are all kinds of words and numbers like calories, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, protein, etc.
But, "WHAT DO THESE THINGS MEAN TO ME?" you might be asking. Let's start in the first and most basic part of nutrition, calories.
A calorie, by definition is a unit of energy. A calorie is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C. Literally, calories are measured by raising the temperature of water through the expenditure of heat, or BURNING them. These are the units we use to run our bodies, calories are what use to live and thrive. Calories are not bad for us!
"But then why do we count calories, why are too many 'bad'?"
Great question! Calories are the fuel we use to energize our bodies on a daily basis. Through evolution, our bodies adapted to be able to store calories through times of low energy or food intake. If a person's body needs an average of 2,500 calories per day just to stay the same weight and function normally, and this person eats more than that number (we call this maintenance calories), they will STORE ENERGY in the form of adipose tissue, better known as body fat.
There are many, many factors that attribute to how and why some people store more or less body fat than others. For every gal or guy out there who wants to lose some weight there is another one that can't seem to put on weight. Two people can be the same age, do the same job, work out the same amount, eat the same foods and amount of calories and one person may lose 10 pounds and the other may gain 10 pounds. Nutrition is VERY individual. Everyone's maintenance calories are different, and even different day to day. That is why online calorie calculators are a good starting point, but not definitive by any means.
Calories are our source of energy. Eat more calories than you burn, and you will store them for later use, or store them as body fat which is our bodies' source of fuel if we don't take in enough calories through our diet. Eat less calories than you burn, and your body will free up that stored energy (body fat) for you to use as energy.
Where do calories come from?
Calories come from MACRO NUTRIENTS. Macro nutrients (macros for short) are any substances that contain calories. There are four macro nutrients
- protein, 4 calories per gram
- carbohydrate, 4 calories per gram
- fat, 9 calories per gram
- alcohol, 7 calories per gram
The number of calories on a nutrition label is the sum of the total energy we get from each macro nutrient in the food item. Each macro nutrient serves their own specific functions.
Protein is made up amino acids, and are the most talked about because that is what our muscles are made of, and eating a diet with adequate protein will help us grow, maintain, or retain a healthy amount of lean body mass. But the break down of proteins into their individual amino acids are used for many, many other functions. I will cover protein more thoroughly in another blog post.
Carbohydrate is our body's preferred sources of energy. Carbohydrates come in different forms such as simple and complex. Most simple carbs are sugars such as glucose (table sugar) which is what our bodies run off of, fructose which is the sugar found in fruits, and lactose the sugar found in dairy products. Carbs are the easiest of the macros for our bodies to break down and convert to energy, which is why they are our body's go-to fuel source. Carbs are not inherently bad, none of the macro nutrients are. But due to over processing, the easy addition of simple sugars, and issues such as insulin resistance they can be easily over used, and cause health issues down the road. I will cover carbohydrates more in depth in an up coming post.
Fat! OH NO! Rule number one: Dietary fat (the fat we ingest) IS NOT the fat on your body. I don't know how or when the myth began that eating fat makes you fat, but it simply isn't true. That fat on our bodies, as stated above, is the storage of excess calories for later use. Now, looking at how many calories are in each gram of fat (9 if you forgot) compared to the other two main macros (4 in each for carbs and protein) we can see that fat has more that two times the calories per gram. Couple that with the fact that the vast majority of fat sources are very condense, it's easy to over consume calories in the form of fat. What do I mean by "fat sources are very condense"? In two table spoons of any oil, olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable oil, etc, there are 28g of fat. That's 252 calories. That's not a lot of food speaking from a perspective of volume. You'd have to eat over a pound of cooked broccoli or a half pound of grilled chicken to get the same number of calories. Does that mean olive oil, or any other oil is bad? No! It means we need to keep a more watchful eye on our fat intake due to it's high caloric load and low volume load. Once again, I will cover fat in more detail in a later blog post.
Lastly, alcohol. I know people like to enjoy adult beverages time to time. I do myself (Crown Royal to be precise). Having 7 calories per gram of it's own calories makes for hard nutrition tracking when looking to achieve any fat loss related goals, not to mention alcohol consumption on it's own has negative effects on fat loss without considering it's caloric content. In the short end of it, and I will dive deeper in a separate post, I always advise to keep alcohol consumption to a minimum. Not just for body composition benefits, but just for overall wellness. Does that mean don't drink, no. It means drink within reason. A drink or two is fine now and again, I've even read studies that go up to a glass of wine per night being OK. But beyond that I would heavily caution.
Putting it all together, what does this mean?
In the above nutrition label we see there are 200 calories. Depending on your personal diet, this could be a lot of calories, or barely any. For example, a female that is only 5 feet tall and weighing 100 lbs, this is most likely a good portion of her daily needs. On the other hand, a large male at 6'5" and 300 lbs, 200 calories is barely a blip on the radar. It all depends on what YOU need. We see there are 5g fat, 10g carbs, and 29g protein. Using our macro numbers from above that would be (5x9) + (10x4) + (29x4) = 201 calories. Wait... That doesn't add up exactly. Correct, and it doesn't have to. Government regulations dictate that nutrition labels can round to nearest 10 calories (some companies do 5, some companies put the exact number). Companies can also be up to 20% (!!!) off in their calculations. WHAT?! Yes. What does that mean for consumers? Relax. The nutrition label is just a product average. You might get a "health" bar with more nuts than the next one meaning your bar has more fat that labeled. Or Less. Doesn't matter, we are looking at ranges. Calories will never be exact, and that's OK because we don't know exactly what our daily needs are.
At the end of the day, you can add up calories, or give yourself a macro nutrient breakdown to follow, but if you take in MORE calories than you burn (through life and exercise) you will gain weight. If you take in LESS calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Don't always trust the "macro calculator" numbers. Those are based of general equations for the average population. Start, track, adjust, repeat. Stay healthy my friends.