basic nutritional information
What is Nutrition?
Nutrition is comprised of the nutrients/elements necessary for proper bodily function. There are two types of nutrients:
- Macronutrients (Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats and Water)
- Micronutrients (Vitamins and Minerals)
What is a calorie?
A calorie is the amount of heat produced when food is burned or metabolized in your body cells. Your body metabolizes food to produce energy in the form of heat, warming your body and powering every move you make.
All calories, no matter where they come from, give you energy. If you take in more calories than you spend each day you will gain weight, if you take in less - you will loose weight.
Not consuming enough calories or not feeding our body on a consistent basis is unhealthy and will prevent weight loss or reduction of body fat. Whenever our body does not receive energy (calories) consistently it enters into a state of starvation and holds on to the food we do provide it, limiting the body's ability to burn and utilize the calories as intended. We should consume, on average, 5 to 6 meals daily, feeding our body every 3 hours.
Macronutrients
PROTEINS: The basic building block of muscles
- Builds and maintains muscle
- Helps regulate metabolism
- Body uses more energy to break down protein (more energy = more calories)
- 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories
Protein should make up 30% of your daily caloric intake and a part of EVERY meal
CARBOHYDRATES: The main energy supply to the body. Carbohydrates break down into simple sugars. There are three types of Carbohydrates: simple carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates and dietary fiber.
- Simple Carbohydrates - carbohydrates with only one or two units of sugar.
- Monosaccharide (simple sugar) = one unit of sugar. Fructose (fruit sugar), Glucose (blood sugar) is the sugar that is produced when you digest carbohydrates, and Galactose (milk sugar) is the sugar that is derived from digesting lactose are all monosaccharides.
- Disaccharide (double sugar) = two units of sugar linked together. Sucrose (table sugar) made of one unit of fructose and one unit of glucose is a disaccharide.
- Complex Carbohyrdates - carbohydrates with more than two units of sugars linked together.
- Polysaccharides = many units of sugar linked together. Starch, which composed of many glucose units, is a polysaccharide.
- Dietary Fiber - a group of complex carbohydrates that are not a source of energy. Like the complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber is also a polysaccharide. Fiber adds no calories to your diet and cannot be converted to glucose. Dietary fiber is a free food group.
- Insoluble Fiber acts as a natural laxative. It absorbs water, helping you feel full after eating and stimulates your intestinal walls to contract and relax, allowing solid material to move through your digestive tract.
- Carbohydrates spare protein from being used as energy, therefore leaving it to do its main job to build and repair body tissue, including muscle, thus the reason no carbohydrates are bad.
- Carbohydrates also help in burning fat. If you think of fat as fuel waiting to be burned, carbohydrate is the spark that ignites fat at the cellular level.
- 1 gram of carbohydrate equals 4 calories
Carbohydrates should make up 60% of your daily caloric intake (no more than 10% to 15% of simple carbohydrates and 45% to 50% of complex carbohydrates & fiber).
FATS: Your body uses dietary fat to make tissue and manufacture biochemicals, such as hormones. Food contains three kinds of fats: Triglycerides, Phospholipids and Sterols. Fats are broken down into Fatty acids.
Fatty Acids are the building blocks of fat. There are three categories of fatty acids: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. A diet high in saturated fat increases the amount of fat in your blood, increasing the amount of cholesterol carried into the blood vessels. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids REDUCE the amount of fat circulating in your body, thus are essential.
- Saturated fat contains mostly saturated fatty acids. They are solid at room temperature and get harder when chilled. Butter and lard are examples of saturated fat. There is no nutritional gain by having saturated fat in your diet.
- Monounsaturated fat contains mostly monounsaturated fatty acids. They are liquid at room temperature and get thicker when chilled. Olive oil and canola oil are examples of monounsaturated fat.
- Polyunsaturated fat contains mostly polyunsaturated fatty acids. They are liquid at room temperature and remain liquid when chilled. Corn oil and soybean oil are examples of polyunsaturated fat.
Fruits, vegetables and fish are primary sources of unsaturated fats. Meat, lard butter and dairy products are primary sources of saturated fats.
- Fat provides a source of stored energy
- Acts as an insulation blanket that reduces heat loss
- Brain tissue is rich is fat
- 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories
- 1 pound of body fat equals 3.500 calories
WATER: Water is a solvent that dissolves substances and carries nutrients and other material, such as blood cells, around the body allowing your organs to do their job. You need water to:
- Digest food, dissolve nutrients so that they can pass through the intestinal cell walls into your bloodstream, and move food along through your intestinal tract.
- Carry waste products out of your body
- Send electrical messages between cells so that your muscles will move, your eyes can see and your brain can think
- Regulates body temperature, cooling your body with moisture that evaporates on your skin
- Lubricate your moving parts
Your body is made up of 50 to 70 percent water. Muscle tissue has more water than fat tissue.
Your daily water intake should be approximately 66% of your body weight.
Example: an individual weighs 140 pounds. Multiply 140 by .66 to figure out how many ounces of water this individual should be drinking in a day.
140 X .66 = 92.4 ounces of water
128 ounces = 1 gallon = 4 liters
Micronutrients
VITAMINS: Vitamins are organic chemicals that contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Vitamins regulate many bodily functions.
- Essential in building body tissue such as bones, skin, glands, nerves and blood.
- Assist in the metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates so you can get energy from food.
- Promotes healing and encourages good health, preventing nutritional deficiency & diseases.
- Fat-soluble vitamins- vitamins that dissolve in fat. If you consume larger amounts of fat-soluble vitamins than your body needs, the excess will be stored in body fat. Examples of fat-soluble vitamins are: Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E and Vitamin K.
- Water-soluble vitamins- vitamins that dissolve in water. Excess water-soluble vitamins are eliminated in urine. Examples of water-soluble vitamins are: Vitamin C, Thiamin, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Biotin and Pantothenic acid.
MINERALS: Minerals are elements that contain only one kind of atom. Unlike vitamins, minerals are inorganic – they do not contain the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen found in all organic compounds.
There are two classifications for minerals – Major minerals and Trace elements. The difference between them is how much you have in your body and how much you need to take in to maintain a steady supply.
For more detailed information on Minerals consult a fitness or nutrition specialist.
ELECTROLYTES: Electrolytes are mineral compounds that dissolve into electrically charged particles called ions. Your body maintains its fluid balance through the action of electrolytes. Sodium, potassium and chlorine are the most common when referring to electrolytes.
