When we act to be the advocates for our own health, be its most rigorous defenders, and give ourselves every opportunity for success,… a large part of that is the nutrition we provide to our bodies. Like weight training, this is a field full of a combination of truths, half-truths, misinformation, lies, and clowns trying to sell you their latest garbage.
In the vein keeping things simple, here is a summary of what you need to fuel your body for success. There are four broad categories. Within the context of this framework we can discuss quality and quantity of each in detail but we will do that in another article. It is essential to first establish the following fundamental framework in four segments: Macronutrients, Micronutrients, Fiber, and Water.
Primary components of food.
- Proteins – Used to build, maintain, and repair body tissues. Beef, Chicken, Fish, Eggs, Cheese, and Pork
- Fats – Long-term energy storage, hormone production, organ insulation, and absorption of some vitamins. Avocados, Oils (Olive, Avocado, Macadamia Nut), Nuts, Cheeses
- Carbohydrates – Used as the body’s primary source of fuel. Bread and Grains, Corn, Fruits, Oatmeal, Potatoes, Rice, Sugars
Micronutrients
Essential components like vitamins and minerals that you body needs in small amounts to support normal growth, cellular function, and disease prevention.Eating high quality macronutrients will help to deliver a lot of your micronutrients. Foods like leafy greens, eggs (primarily egg yolks), fatty fish, nuts, seed, beans, and lentils can deliver high quality micronutrients to your machine. You should certainly include these foods in your diet. However, a high-quality multi-vitamin supplement can help ensure that you eliminate any gaps in fulfilling your Micronutrient requirements. Micronutrients include:
- Vitamins
- Minerals
- Trace Metals
- Antioxidants
Fiber
A variety of carbohydrate that the body cannot digest or break down. Fiber is critical for the normal functioning of your digestive tract, nourish your gut cells, and improve colon function. Foods higher in fiber include; whole grains (oatmeal, brown rice, whole wheat), apples berries, carrots, leafy green. A high-quality fiber supplement composed of psyllium husks can provide any gaps in your daily fiber requirement. This is a component rarely discussed in fitness circles but it is one of the most critical parts of a healthy functioning machine.
Water
Clean unadulterated water is a must for normal functioning and essential for great health. On average men should consume about a gallon of fluids each day and women should consume about 3/4 gallon. Athletes depending upon activity, sweating, etc. should probably consume more than that. However, don’t consume too much volume without replacing minerals, electrolytes etc.
Making the Complex Simple
That might be sounding a bit like technical baffle garble. To simplify things, for a 200lb athletic male.
- Consume 2,500 calories of high-quality daily foods daily. Calories per macro something like 27% proteins, 53% fats, 20% carbohydrates. * This assumes your maintenance calories are in that 2,500 range and that you wish to maintain your weight. Adjust your carbohydrate up or down based upon the energy you need and whether or not you are spilling over. Spilling over means you body is storing more excess carbohydrates as body fat for future energy usage. (Read: The Simplest and Most Useful Description of Macros Ever)
- Supplement your diet with a high-quality complete multi-vitamin and a high-quality complete Essential Fatty Acids supplement to take the guess work out of supplying all of the micronutrients that you need.
- Drink about a gallon of high-quality/unadulterated water daily. This can vary based upon your body mass, heat and humidity of your environment, your activity level, etc. In terms of amount of water consumed, avoid the extremes. On one extreme, most of the population is likely dehydrated most of the time. If you are thirsty, you probably took too long to hydrate, If you aren’t peeing every couple hours, you are drinking too little. If your pee is bright yellow, you are dehydrated. if this is the case, drink more and more often. Don’t force it though. On the other extreme (and much more rare) are those newer to fitness who might be drinking too much based upon a recommendation they read or heard. You could be diluting your system, flushing too many vital nutrients, minerals, etc. out of your body. If you are peeing too frequently and your pee is virtually clear in color, you might be forcing it. You should know it though because this takes a concerted effort to overdo it with water consumption.
- Supplement your diet with a high quality fiber supplement daily to keep things coming and going!
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