Nutrition


The Basics of Nutrition

All foods are made up of either protein, carborhydrates or fat - these are known as macros. Within the items of food you will find vitamins and minerals - these are known as micros.

Protein is made up of amino acids there are 20 in total. 9 essential and 11 non essential. Essential means your body doesn't produce it and has to get it from food. Whereas non essential amino acids are made by your bady.

Carborhydrates are sugars. The simplest form is glucose. The simpler the sugar the faster is will be absorbed into the blood stream. This can be good or bad, depending on what you're doing, and wanting to achieve. The more complex the sugar the longer it takes to get into your blood stream, and it requires more energy to break it down. The glycemic index is a scale of how long carborhydrates take to enter the blood stream, the lower the number the longer it takes.

Fats are highly calorie dense. Saturated fats are a solid at room temperature and unsaturated fats are a liquid at room temperature. The 2 main types of unsaturated fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated each containing different nutrients. 

Choosing a Diet

Basically a diet is a set of rules governing what you can and can not eat. Either controlling your macros or removing certain types of foods.

A few diets that control your macros are: low carb, high carb, high protein or carb cycling. Other diets that remove certain foods are: paleo, vegetarian or auto-immune diet. There isn't one diet that is the best for everyone. People who do well with one, others may not and vice versa. This makes picking the right diet for you a lot harder than just copying your friend or the new fad diet that's going around.

Things to consider when choosing a diet are:
  • What do you want to acheive (sports performance, healthy living, weight loss)
  • Food intolerances
  • How well your body processes different foods

Once you have decided what foods you're going to eat the next thing to consider is when your going to eat them. Eating for sport performance you will need to eat more calories compared to someone who just wants to be activately healthy, generally having more meals throughout the day.

Things to consider about meal timing are:
  • Plan eating around hard training sessions
  • Intermittent fasting (for healthy living)
  • Carb timing ​