Nutrition: Getting Started

What we eat is a big deal. From the day we are born until the day we die, hopefully, everyday, in varying amounts, we eat. We need do it to sustain life. It seems so important because it is. While eating can be a matter of life and death, diet and nutrition are less so. It is because of the importance of food to life, that we often think that diet and nutrition needs to be complex. After all, important problems merit complex solutions. While this may be true in aeronautics, or particle physics, it is not the case in nutrition. In fact, more often than not, folks over complicate this simple concept in a fear based approach to get you to buy their product or diet philosophy. There are many “healthy” ways to eat, and none of them need to be complicated.

Understanding nutrition really comes down to understanding the needs of each of us individually. Someone who is actively exercising everyday, or does manual labor, is going to have very different needs than someone who works a desk job and trains 2-3 days a week. This is why you’ll be hard pressed to find successful and sustainable nutritional philosophies that have a one size fits all approach. Goals, if present, matter just as much as someone who is trying to maintain a current body weight vs someone who is trying to gain muscles will need different dietary trends. We need to treat ourselves each as n=1 cases and while it can be very useful to learn from others and see what worked or didn’t work for them, we are each unique enough that we deserve the respect of our own systems and applications.

Let’s break down the fundamentals of nutrition so that you can better understand food labels, nutrient timing, and your own needs. We can put a food composition into 2 major categories: macro nutrients (Carbs, fats, protein, alcohol/containing calories) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals/not containing calories). All foods contain some or all of each of these two major buckets. We need to consume a recommended amount of both macro and micro nutrients a day. This is where you are beginning to see how this system can get very complicated, however, before this article is over, you may come to realize that it does not need to be as such.

Looking at macros first, let's examine Carbs or carbohydrates. At 4 kcal/gram, carbs are an excellent energy source, in fact that is just about all they are good for. Luckily they are prolific in a variety of foods so we seldom feel as though we have limited access to their availability. Carbs come in a variety of complexities that determine their speed of digestibility. Sugars are quickly digested, while starchier carbs take a bit longer to break down. Carbs are critical to an active individual and they are the preferred fuel source for your muscles during hard exercise and also your brain. Having some before and after exercise is critical to having a “good workout” just as is having them before a tough meeting at work so that you aren’t “hangery”. Most naturally occurring carb sources have some amount of fiber in them. Fiber, while technically a carb, is ingestible in the human gut, thus it passes through us unprocessed. Insoluble fiber rushes through our system and helps to keep us regular, while soluble fiber goes much slower and can absorb extra waste the body is trying to dispose of such as bile. So, no, carbs are not evil, and they can and should be an important part of the diet of healthy and active individuals.

Fats, carrying the most energy density at 9 kcal/gram, are also an important part of the diet. Vitally, vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble, meaning they need fat present in order to pass into our bodies. This alone means fat is a necessary part of any diet. In fact, individuals can and have died of a condition known as “Rabbit Starvation” where a person lacks the necessary fats in their diet to sustain life. This is named after frontiersmen who trapped and ate rabbits (a very lean meat) while also eating berries and grains, a diet void of any fats. Many who lived this way for too long passed away. So yes, we need fats, they are, by and far, the easiest macro to over consume because, when coupled with carbs, are extremely delicious. Think of chips, french fries, pizza, ice cream, all these hyper palatable foods are a perfect marriage of carbs and fats. Due to the caloric density of fats and the ability to “keep eating” these foods, it is easy to find yourself in a serious caloric surplus. We need to eat some fats, but this is why minimizing these foods in our daily routines and applying fats in moderate amounts to our own cooking are often the best strategies.

Protein, carrying 4 kcal/gram, is the current talk of the town. “You’ve got to eat your protein!” This is true, however, it is not as hard of a process as some make it out to be, and while powders and supplements are certainly helpful, they are not required to meet your daily protein goals. What does protein do in our bodies? Well…pretty much everything. First off, we are mostly made of it, our muscles, organs, hair, etc is made of specialized proteins built together for a specific purpose. Within our cells, every chemical reaction, every cell division, or signal sent throughout the body, requires a specialized protein to catalyze the reaction. Without it, we simply cannot exist. Luckily, we are made of it and proteins can be broken down easily into its competent parts called amino acids. There are 20 amino acids and 9 of them need to be consumed in our diet while the other 11 can be recycled from old proteins in our bodies if needed. Seems pretty important, and like the vitamins and minerals earlier, you may be asking “how do I know if my diet contains enough of the 9 essential amino acids?” Just like the vitamin question, the answer will be simple. If you are consuming animal based protein sources like dairy, chicken, fish and meat, you are always getting all 9 essential amino acids, these sources are called “complete proteins” for this reason. Some other good protein sources, like legumes, are not complete, but can easily be made that way by pairing them with another protein source. Rice and beans is a great example of making a complete protein by combining two incomplete ones into one dish. We need to eat our protein not just to gain muscles, but to sustain a healthy active body.

At this point, you may feel over saturated with information, and that would be true because all we have done is a cursory overview of the macro nutrients with no actionable advice. So let’s change that. Where does someone start if they want to make a positive change in their eating habits? First it is important to be honest about where you are currently at with regards to diet. Query your last week of food choices and see where some low hanging fruit are? Had ice cream for dinner three times? Drinking fancy delicious coffee drinks everyday? Or maybe you had chicken and broccoli for 7 dinners last week. We can and should be all over the place because we are all individuals with different personal, emotional, and cultural needs. The important thing is that we take the first step, and that step is self reflection. What do you like to eat? What do you not like? What do you overeat easily? How often do you think about food and eating? There is a lot to unpack here, much more than we can cover in a single article.

Once you’ve thought honestly about where you are you need to figure out where you want to go. Do you want to gain muscle? Lose weight? Or just have a better relationship with food? These are all valid goals and all of them can and should help guide you on your path to understanding your own eating habits. Since eating is a lifelong journey, this process is lifelong, there is not rush to change things rapidly, so let’s first look at the lowest hanging fruit that offer the most bang for your buck in terms of positive dietary change. While most Americans eating a Standard Western Diet are not deficient in protein, those of us that go on diets with a goal of losing weight often under eat this macro. This leads to muscle loss, and a general feeling of incessant hunger as protein, like fiber, helps make us “feel full” after a meal (yet another reason we can eat an infinite number of chips, not enough protein to signal a “full feeling”). So choose to lower calories or not, that is goal dependent, however, we all need to eat enough protein. 60% of our body weight in pounds is a great place to start. For a 200lb person this would be 120 g/day. While it can take time to get to this point regularly, start to pay attention to foods and meals and construct them with protein in mind. Read food labels and choose foods that have a higher protein per serving than carbs for fats. You’ll be surprised by adding some extra chicken at dinner, with greek yogurt for breakfast, and maybe even a protein shake after the gym quickly adds up to your daily target. Once we reach this target we can slowly increase up to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, especially if muscle building or maintenance is a goal. The best part is you will start to feel more full more often and are likely to actually “eat less” even though it feels like you are eating more.

Next, after getting your protein locked down, is fiber. The reason we choose fiber is two fold. First, it is great for your gut health and this emerging realm of research is showing more and more how important gut health is to overall health. But besides that, foods that are rich is fiber, just so happen to be rich in vitamins and minerals. Yes you can weigh everything and count all these micro nutrients to make sure you are getting enough, and those of us who have certain health conditions may need to do this, but for the majority of us, eating a variety of fiber rich foods is enough to get the micronutrient profile that we need. Fruits, whole grains, legumes, and vegetables are all great sources of fiber, micronutrients, and when prepared correctly, are delicious. So throw some cabbage and beans in your burrito, some oats and berries with your greek yogurt, and a potato or 10 with your dinner. Like the protein, you’ll feel like you are eating more food but you likely will be eating less, and you will be starting to feel much better.

At this point, if we are hitting our protein goals and eating a variety of fiber sources with each meal, we are 90% of the way there. Most people can stop here, and begin to experiment and expand their meals to get some variety that will create more sustainability in their diet long term. Some of us, however, may need to look at total calories if our goals involve serious weight change. I cannot give specifics, because as previously stated, we are all special cases and caloric needs vary greatly from person to person based on body composition, activity level and lifestyle. However, you can get a good of idea of how many calories you are consuming on average, over a week or two, by keeping a food journal. Apps like myfitnesspal have made tracking much easier, and while it is not required, it can make this process much less tedious. The best course is to monitor your total weekly calories for a week (2 would be better), be careful not to change your intake too much, as often people will begin to eat less or skip snacks because they know they have to record it, even if they are the only one who will see that information. I prefer a weekly average, as those of us who work Mon-Fri, are known to undereat or hit our target during work days, then a dinner and brunch or two later we go way over on saturday or sunday, enough so to negate the deficit we made during the week. Once you get the gist of your average daily caloric intake, aim for 100-200cal/day less. More may cause rapid weight loss which will lead to muscle loss and is generally unpleasant to be around. This number should yield about .75lb-1lb lost per week on average. Keep in mind that may mean your average weight doesn’t change for 3 weeks then on week 4 you lose 4lb, that is why averages are so important here. This process takes time, but everyone can find their way there if they give it the attention it deserves.

These are the big three levers that, if most people pull, can get their diets in line with a goal they might have. Eat more protein rich foods, target a minimum of 60% of our body weight in lbs/day as grams of protein, choose a variety of fiber rich foods as often as your imagination can handle, and if absolutely necessary create a small calorie deficit or increase of no more than 100/200 cal/day as needed for goal aligned weight change. As we said at the start, they are not complicated, they are simple, but no one said simple was easy