LETS EAT

Now, you’re trying to get proper sleep and exercise every day, and you’re checking the nutrition labels of the food you eat to be sure you aren’t unintentionally overeating. If you are doing so, remember these are huge lifestyle changes that take amazing willpower to commit to. Give yourself a quick round of applause.

However, what are you eating? Maybe you look only at caloric information – which is a great first step – and the rest of the nutrition label is gibberish.

So, let’s unpack nutrition. To begin, there are three major nutrients that make up your diet. These are called macronutrients, and are made up of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Each of these macronutrients is essential to your health and fitness progression.

For instance, the body relies primarily on glucose to fuel daily activity. Glucose is produced when you ingest carbohydrates, and is released into the blood. When your body realizes that your blood glucose (blood sugar) levels are elevated, it releases insulin to tell your cells to open up to the glucose. Any excess glucose is stored in muscle and liver tissues as glycogen for future endurance activities.

While that is quite a bit to process, the basic point is that carbs fuel most of your activity on a daily basis and should make up the majority of your nutrient consumption (45-65 percent).

Fats may seem scary if you are trying to avoid gaining fat-mass, but are actually very important to your health. Fats are essential to the absorption of certain vitamins and contain essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6) which are vital to the creation of compounds that maintain healthy blood pressure and vision, among other things.

The big idea here is that you should aim to consume unsaturated fats, limit the consumption of saturated fats, and try your very best to always avoid trans fats (also referred to as hydrogenated oils). Fats should be 20-35 percent of your daily consumption.

Finally, proteins: Proteins form the main structural components of your body – bone and muscle. When you exercise regularly you will gain non-fat mass, but if you don’t get enough protein (10-35 percent of daily intake) your body will not be able to efficiently recover from bouts of exercise. This is because proteins contain amino acids, which are vital to many functions of the brain and body, one of which if tissue repair.

When deciphering a nutrition label, the most important thing for you to remember is that all values are based in a 2,000-calorie daily diet. So, always adjust the given percentage values to your personal daily intake.

All of the macronutrients work together to maintain a healthy body and mind. They also all contain some micronutrients, which are vitamins and minerals that are extremely important to physiological functions.

To reach optimal outcomes from lifestyle changes such as proper sleep and exercise, it is vital that you also aim to consume and balance macronutrients relative to your intake goals.