If you ever took economics in school you may remember there are two kinds, macroeconomics
and micro-economics. Macro-economics studied the economy as a whole
and how something going on in the overall economy might affect the individual. Microeconomics
was the study of how an individual’s behavior would affect the economy as a
whole. Similarly, there are two different classifications when it comes to your food.
Macro-nutrients: larger classification of calories defined as fat, carbohydrates and
protein. Micro-nutrients are the small integral parts of each macro-nutrient which
include vitamins, minerals and others I will go into in the next section.
If you want to make the types of decisions that will lead to weight loss and better health
then you need to know the important details. You don’t have to become a certified
nutritionist, I didn’t, but the basics of each nutrient will give you a strong enough
foundation for the rest of your life.
Protein. (7)The most abundant nutrient after water, protein makes up 50% of the
structure of your body as dry weight. Protein is just a combination of amino acids.
Chains are between 50 and thousands of amino acids bonded together to make a
protein. There are 22 commonly used amino acids in the human body. They are
divided into essential amino acids(8-10 depending on the definition), meaning your body
can’t make them and needs them through your diet. Non-essential amino acids are
what your body can make with the essential amino acids present. Think of amino acids
like a huge pile of legos. Given the right legos you can build anything.
There are about 50,000 different tasks your body uses protein and protein messengers
for. We need a fresh supply of amino acids everyday because we don’t store protein.
Either we use it, it gets converted to glucose (blood sugar) or our liver converts it to urea
for our kidneys to process and we pee it out. Basically, that long explanation was for
you to see that protein does not equal meat. Protein is simply combinations of amino
acids. Amino acids are in every fruit, vegetable, grain, nut, seed, bean and mushroom
we eat. Stop associating protein with meat and you are well on your way to losing
weight and getting healthy.
Protein is probably the most misunderstood macro-nutrient because society at large,
our doctors and family generally regard meat as the best source of protein and an
essential part of being healthy. This could not be further from the truth as I will explain
later. Once again, we need all three macro nutrients, but if you just assume that getting
them anyway they come across your plate is ok, then you NEED to keep reading.
Carbohydrates. I will spend as much time on carbohydrates, because they aren’t
inherently evil like some of the other diets out there say. However, they can be
dangerous to our health if consumed incorrectly which is why you need to understand
them. Carbohydrates are the main power supply for our body. They are sugars,
starches and fibers. Sugars and starches are what our body will break down and that
each of our cells uses for energy. These include simple and complex carbohydrates
which basically classifies its complexity and how quickly it is broken down and absorbed
into the blood stream. Insulin is the hormone produced by our pancreas that binds itself
to the blood sugar glucose and escorts it into the cell to burn as energy.
The key for carbohydrates, if your goal is to be healthy and lose weight, is to eat as
unrefined as possible. Fiber in fruits, grains and vegetables helps to slow the digestion
enough so our pancreas can keep up with enough insulin. Fructose is a simple sugar
found in many fruits and starchy vegetables. (8) It needs to be converted to glucose in
our liver so that our cells can use it. This means that a diet that is too high in fructose
can put a toxic load on our liver and make it hard to perform other functions.
Remember, clean blood, strong liver.
In the modern food supply high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) has become a standard
additive to many foods and sweet drinks. It’s cheap, easy to use and somewhat
addictive. What more could the food companies want?
Fiber and antioxidants, like vitamins, help our body process sugars more effectively
which is why we need to be careful about processed foods. Carbs can be bad if we are
consistently getting our supply from refined sources such as sodas/juices, refined
pastas and breads. Refining generally strips the food of valuable fiber, vitamins and
minerals. This is how carbohydrates can be bad for us.
Fat. Another demonized nutrient in society, but rightly so. In the Western world our diet
has become so high in processed foods, fried foods, fried AND processed foods that the
average person is consuming 40% of their calories from fat. Even 30% of caloric intake
from fat calories is considered acceptable. This is ludicrous! Cutting out most of the fat
from your diet is the foundation of the WWD. Remember how fat is where many of the
toxins are stored?
Consider this: if you consume a fair amount of meat or animal products, you’re likely
getting a high amount of animal fat. That means you’re constantly ingesting other
animal’s toxins! If you’ve seen how animals are raised for slaughter you know how
many toxins they likely have. I commonly advise people watch movies like, “Food Inc.”
or “The Future of Food” to get a visual of the food they are putting in their bodies.
However, fat is essential because it is needed to rebuild cells and make hormones.
There are two different kinds of fat, saturated and unsaturated. The science of it has to
do with the hydrogen “saturation” of the fat molecule. Most unrefined plants contain
unsaturated fats, with a few exceptions of (typically) tropical trees like avocado, coconut
and nuts having saturated fats. We need both, but our over-consumption of animal
foods have imbalanced our saturated fat levels. Saturated fat is solid at room
temperature while unsaturated fat is liquid.
Think about this when eating animal products. The fat in them is solid at 98.7 degrees
which is your body temperature (roughly). That means this fat is staying solid inside
your body. Think when you drink that glass of cold water after you eat. That is just
making it even harder on your body to use that saturated fat. When given the choice to
burn fat or carbohydrates our bodies will burn the carbs, especially since these big
chunks of cold, hard fat are floating around. We are very efficient at storing fat and will
do so with ease when there is an excess amount floating around inside.
Broken down further, there are 3 essential fatty acids to consider. Omega 3,6,9. Our
bodies make omega 9 and they are commonly found in vegetables so don’t worry about
those. Omega 3s and 6s are what we need to focus on to get healthy and lose weight.
Scientifically documented, (23) 1 in 6 people die because of Omega 3 fatty acid
deficiency. We have developed such an imbalance of Omega 3s compared to an over
abundance of Omega 6s that our health is really suffering.
Most of the fats available to us in our modern diet are Omega 6 fatty acids. We need to
make a conscious decision to include more Omega 3s. Reducing our overall fat intake
will drastically cut Omega 6 intake and we’ll cover Omega 3 supplementation later.
(9)For now, know that Omega 3 fatty acids help to increase metabolism, improve brain
function, build healthier cells and lower bad cholesterol. That’s what we are going to
focus on, getting more Omega 3s and less fried foods, processed foods and packaged
foods which are mostly Omega 6s.
Calories in each macronutrient:
Protein 4 calories/gram
Carbohydrate 4 calories/gram
Fat 9 calories/gram
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