Everybody has heard people say you need to eat a certain way in order to lose weight. They say "don't eat fat" or "watch your carbs" and "eat plenty of protein". People often think of fat and carbs as the enemy and protein as your friend in the "eating game". Why? Probably because everybody has been told consuming fat and carbs mean you gain weight and consuming protein means you gain muscle. Today, I dove deeper into furthering my knowledge of these three things it seems most people don't know much about.
Fat, protein and carbohydrates are nutrients we need everyday. They are referred to as macronutrients, or macros, because they are made of large molecules. If you've ever heard anyone talk about "calculating their macros", it means they have figured out how many grams of fat, protein, and carbs they need daily. The numbers for each depend on your weight, height, activity level, and so on. Since I have already covered what fat is, I will focus mainly on protein and carbs. Just so you aren't confused, vitamins, iron, zinc, etc. are micronutrients because the molecules that made them up are smaller. Carbs: On the molecular level, a carbohydrate is simply a carbon atom attached to a water molecule (for all of the other science nerds like myself). Along with fats, carbs provide much of the energy we need. Some organs, such as your brain, are dependent on carbs as their source of energy. This is the macro that we need the most of everyday, the average adult usually needs 130 grams of carbs per day. Carbs are separated into two categories, simple carbs and complex carbs. Simple carbs consists of different kinds of sugars, monosaccharides (glucose, or blood sugar; fructose-fruit sugar) and disaccharides (two sugar molecules). Complex carbs, or polysaccharides, are starch, glycogen, and cellulose. Protein: Proteins are a special kind of molecule called amino acids. They are the building blocks for building bones, muscle, skin, tendons, hair, finger nails, ligaments, cartilage, enzymes, hormones, antibodies, hemoglobin. When you consume protein, it gets broken down into various amino acids which are then reassembled into new amino acids your body needs. Amino acids fall into two categories. Non-essential amino acids are those you do not need to consume. Out of the 20 kinds of amino acids, the body naturally produces 11 of those. The opposite of non-essentials, essential amino acids, are those you need to consume because your body can't make these. There are 9 essential amino acids we need to consume daily. You shouldn't worry too much if you are consuming the essential amino acids or not. Meat, fish, eggs, chicken, and dairy are complete proteins as they contain all of the amino acids. Protein that comes from a non-animal source are referred to as incomplete proteins because they don't contain all of the amino acids. However, you can always combine your fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, and whole grains to get all of the amino acids. Why should you know your macros? If you want to lose weight and are serious about it, you must know your macros to get serious results. No matter how much you weigh or how active you are, you will always need fat, carbs, and protein. Of course, the total grams per day will be less, but you shouldn't try to avoid fats or carbs entirely. What foods you are consuming to get your macros matters A LOT. Try getting your fats from nuts and fats naturally occurring in plants, stay away from animal fat and oil (exception could be virgin olive oil). Also, try getting your carbs from complex carbs, e.i. fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains.They have more micronutrients that simple carbs lose during refining process. Complex carbs are also more filling, as they are digested slower, which decreases blood sugar (glucose) spikes. This decreases problems with obesity, diabetes, and heart problem. I used this website called Eat This Much to calculate my macros. All you have to do is follow the steps on the site, plugging in your activity level and daily calorie goal (which it can also help you find). the website then gives you a daily meal plan that hits your daily macro needs. I'll let you dive into this more, click here. All of my information was gathered from here: http://www.shapesense.com/nutrition/articles/
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