Nutrition 101, A deeper dive into the fundamentals of nutrition.

We frequently encounter phrases like "Eat clean," "You are what you eat," "Just eat healthy," and "Eating late causes weight gain" in our daily lives. Additionally, we hear about various diets such as keto, carnivore, low-carb, and intermittent fasting on a regular basis. This raises the question: how much of this information is accurate? What is the truth behind these claims? How can we make sense of it all? Today, we will delve into the fundamental principles of nutrition, enabling you to draw educated conclusions.

Calories

At a surface level, it all comes down to calories, calories in/calories out. Simply put, if you eat more calories than you burn (in a 24 hr span), you gain weight. If you eat less calories, than you burn you lose weight. This weight can be anything from fat, to muscle tissue, to water. We will discuss fat loss vs weight loss in a article in the near future. This equation also demonstrates the principle behind Americas obesity pandemic and overall weight gain which we see in our everyday world. For a better understanding of Americas current obesity pandemic, click here.

Furthermore, when you hear the term metabolism or someone mentioning they have a fast or slow metabolism, it refers to how efficiently your body processes food, or in literal terms, how many calories you burn.

The number of calories you burn daily is influenced by various factors, including activity levels, hormones, gender (since men typically weigh more and have more muscle, which is metabolically active), age, thyroid function, and genetics.

Reading labels

Below is an image of your typical nutrition label, as you can see the food contains 280 calories per serving. Below this you see many different numbers, and may be clueless as to what these mean. Total Fat, Carbohydrates, Fiber, and Protein are what we will focus on as they account for the calculation of calories.

To begin we will look at the first row below calories, Total Fat. As you can see via the label, the food item contains a total of 9 grams of fat (4.5g of these 9 come from saturated as mentioned below). It is important to note that there are 9 calories per 1 gram of fat. So out of the total 280 calories, 9(grams of total fat)*9(calories/gram of fat)=81, 81 calories come from fat.

Next we will go down to the Total Carbohydrate where we see 34 grams, with 4 coming from fiber and 6 from sugar. It is important to mention that Fiber cannot be digested by the body, and is not broken down into glucose (Don't worry this will be covered later on), thus cannot be utilized for energy, so the calories from fiber never count. Carbohydrates (excluding fiber) contain 4 calories per gram. So again, 4*34 (total grams of carbohydrates)= 140 total calories coming from carbohydrates.

Lastly Protein, we see there are 15 grams of Protein. Protein, just like carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, and in this case the total amount of calories resulting from protein are 60.

So there we have it:

281 total calories, 81 from fat, 140 from carbs, and 60 from protein. But wait this only equals 280? Why is that? According to the FDA, companies are usually within 20% accurate on nutrition label, so in this case its safe to assume 280 looks a lot better then 281.

A further look into macros

So now that you know how to read a nutrition label, we will be discussing macros, what they are, how they play a role into your diet etc. Like stated in the previous section everything has macros, from rice to chicken. Macro stands for macronutrients, and the overall calories of a food item, are broken down into macros. There are three types of macros, Carbs, Fats, and Proteins.

Carbs:

Carbohydrates, the bodies preferred source of energy, are broken down as glucose (sugar) when entering the blood stream. Excess glucose is stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen for later use.

Examples of foods which are dominantly consisting of carb sources are rice, fruits, oats, bread, pasta, cereal, and the list continues.

Now carbohydrate sources vary in how they are digested, their impacts on blood sugar levels, and insulin spikes. A blog post discussing carbohydrates sources, timing, etc for your nutrition plan will be released soon.

For now just understand this:

-Carbohydrates consisting a high glycemic index, are labeled as simple carbs, are typically sugary, and quicker digesting, spiking insulin levels. Complex carbs, commonly advocated, are low in glycemic index, contain less sugar, and digest slowly, thus create a feeling of fullness and are more satiating. Common sources of high glycemic carbs include bread, fruit, cereal, candy, or anything with sugar. Low Glycemic carbs include vegetables, oats, potatoes, and beans.

Protein:

Protein is used for reparative functions, popularly known for its role in repairing muscle tissue in the process of Muscle Protein Synthesis (blog coming soon). When broken down in the bloodstream, amino acids are released. 

Essentially with proteins, just like carbohydrates there are different kinds. Complete proteins, incomplete proteins (blog coming soon), the list continues. 

For now just understand this: 

• There are 9 essential Amino Acids necessary to form a complete protein. 

• If less than 9 amino acids are present, this is an incomplete protein

• Animal proteins, protein from dairy, or any form of protein which comes from animals, is almost always a complete protein.

• Protein from vegetarian sources, such as pea protein or plant protein is generally incomplete and lacking sufficient amino acids

• In the role of building muscle (which many intend to do), it is important to have a sufficient amount of amino acids present in the blood streams at all times (as this stimulates repair of muscle tissue). Thus having complete protein sources will always be advantageous in the context of physique development.
  

Fats

Fats, when broken down, release as fatty acids and glycerol. Fats are crucial in the role of hormonal regulation and immune function. Fats, out of all, are probably the most controversial in regards to which are good and which are bad. As far as fats go, there are Omega 6, Omega 3 (Salmon, and commonly seen in supplement forms), trans fats, polyunsaturated fats, cholesterol, monounsaturated fats, and saturated fats.

Omega 6, trans, and saturated fats are typically all not ideal in large amounts, as they are linked to causing inflammation and disrupting the gut microbiome.

Connecting the dots

Calories, macros, carbs what the heck does this all have to do with any of the claims made in the beginning of a passage. See if you understand these principles of calories in vs calories out, you understand that fad diets such as keto are not the magic solution for fat loss.

Lets take keto as an example: a low carb, high protein, high fat diet which is tied to wait loss. Now lets take the average male: consuming about 2700 calories a day. Say 60% of these calories (American health standard guideline for carbohydrates), comes from carbs. Essentially this same male goes on a keto diet, keeps his diet practically the same, and reduces his carbohydrate intake to roughly 0. Thats a 60% decrease in overall caloric intake! Now sure carbohydrate reduction, when in a deficit for extended periods of time results in ketosis (blog coming soon), but the net principle for the fat loss achieved is behind the caloric deficit created through the reduction in carbohydrates, there is nothing special about zeroing your carb intake.

The list goes on. In today's world, countless claims are made without supporting mechanisms, but I hope this basic guide to macronutrients and caloric intake has helped you take a step further in enhancing your knowledge. This understanding can assist you in making more informed decisions about your diet.

References:

• Brehm, B. J., et al. (Year). A Randomized Trial Comparing a Very Low Carbohydrate Diet and a Calorie-Restricted Low Fat Diet on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Healthy Women. Journal of Nutrition. Link to the study

• Mullens, A., & Scher, B. (2019). Effectiveness of a Continuous Care Intervention for Type 2 Diabetes Management: Two-Year Results of the Virta Health Keto Study. Obesity Week Abstracts. Link to the abstract