The skinny on weight augmentation

 The foundation of perfect health, contrary to what alot of people believe, can be achieved through the foods you eat.  You can spend every waking hour walking on a treadmill, lifting weights, or running through every single aerobics class your gym has to offer but the truth is, if your not eating right, you just wasting your time.  So what exactly does eating right mean?  It's different for every person because of factors such as age, gender, activity levels, and goals, but the composition of food doesn't really change.  Protein is protein, fat is fat, and carbs are carbs.  Finding out your perfect combination is the first step in figuring out your perfect diet.  There are four steps that I use when helping people decide what there diet should look like. (No it's not Atkin's or South Beach, I believe in the real meaning of diet which is simply the foods you eat, not in the restrictive sense of most diets in a box.)  The steps are as follows:

1) Understanding nutrients and how they affect the body

2) Calculating Caloric needs based on Activity Levels

3) Seperating your calorie percentages into every meal

4) Choosing supplements to fill the gaps in your daily needs.

It is my opinion that these things should be known and understood prior to starting a fitness program for two reasons, the biggest being not wasting your time when you are training.  The second is mostly for health reasons, such as making sure the body is properly fueled for training and recovery and if there are physical issues like diabetes, your intake better cover your glucose storage unless you want to pass out on a treadmill and shoot off the end like a slingshot.

Step Number one: Understanding nutrients and how they affect the body.

There are six major nutrient categories that classify every type of food that we eat. Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat, Vitamins, Minerals, and Water. The first three are your basic building blocks of the body, and the last three help to promote optimum health and increased energy. Let's take a closer look at each separately so we know how to distinguish between all of them.

Protein: Proteins are used primarily for the repair of muscle tissue in the body and as the bodies last resort in energy production. Almost all types of animal contain large amounts of quality protein, (though fat is usually just as high), and some beans and nuts contain it also. The body is able to use the protein found in animals much easier than in plants. Most fad diets now tell you to live on a high protein diet to lose weight because of the difficulty to turn protein into fat, but with a diet that is mostly protein, you put a lot of stress on your excretion system, (kidneys and bladder). When trying to gain lean muscle, it is recommended to eat more protein, but don't neglect the other nutrients. Remember, we need them all in order to live.

Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates or Carbs can be found in almost all plants. When the body digests carbs, it converts it into glycogen or sugar and is used as energy. Because the body can only use so much at a time, it will store the rest of it as body fat to be used at a later time. Carbs are a much hated enemy in the battle of the bulge, but are necessary for surviving. Most diets that are pushed are extremely low Carb or no Carb and a primary reason why these diets fail is because when the body doesn't get what it wants or needs, your brain makes you continually think about quick carb sources like fast food and chocolate. Eventually the mind will always win. Besides it is never healthy to remove a nutrient from you diet.

Fats: Fats are broken down into triglycerides and then used as energy after your glycogen storage is depleted. On average, a fifteen to twenty minute walk will not do much for your waistline because you are only getting rid of the glycogen stores and never tap into your bodyfat. They can be found in the same places as protein and are used as energy and for a catalyst in chemical reactions in the body. While fat has taken a bad rap for years, it is carbs that tend to do the most increase on the scale.

Vitamins: A, B, C, D, E, and K are all used for everything else that the body needs like repair of bones, energy production, immunity health, and even organ health. They can be located in everything you eat on varying degrees of concentration. While vitamins are necessary for all the bodies actions, most people seem not to get there daily allowance of all the proper vitamins and become deficient which leads to things like immunity failure, osteoporosis, and other health related illnesses.

Minerals: Minerals or more earthly in design such as iron, calcium, and chromium. They are responsible also for internal body production like increasing red blood cells and strengthening bones, as well as energy production and fighting against disease. These tend to be a little easier for the body to find in food, but be careful, moderation is the key in taking minerals simply because of the fact that at high levels, they become toxic and severe health conditions can arrive.

Water: Water is what 80 percent of your body is made of and the one thing the body cannot reproduce on it's own. That is why keeping the body hydrated is so important. It is used in almost every action of the body and is spent very quickly in the body then released as sweat or urine. The easiest way to know if you are taking in enough water is to look at the color of your urine. If you are properly hydrated, it will be almost clear and the less the body has the darker your urine will become. Water is the one nutrient that we absolutely can't live without. You can go years living with a carb deficiency, but without water, you couldn't survive more than a few days before you became severely dehydrated and sick.

Step Number 2 and 3: Discovering your daily caloric needs and separating them between how many meals you take in daily.

Everybody is unique in the amount of calories they need to consume and where those calories come from. There is no fixed diet that caters to everyone. Most are just general approximations of intake and don't consider other aspects such as activity levels or health issues. The most acceptable separation between Protein, Carbs, and Fat is 25 to 30 percent protein, 40 to 50 percent carbs, and 15 to 20 percent fat, (1/3 of fat is allowed to be saturated). One gram of protein contains 4 calories, one gram of carbs contains 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories. The first thing that you need to calculate is your Basal Metabolic Rate. BMR is how many calories you would burn if you did nothing all day but lay in bed. The formula is different for men and women and looks like this

Men: 66 + (6.23Xweight in LBS) + (12.7Xheight in inches) - (6.8Xage in years)=BMR

Women: 655 + (4.35Xweight in LBS) + (4.7Xheight in inches) - (4.7Xage in years)=BMR

Using me for an example, I just need to plug in my weight, height, and age to figure my BMR

66 + (6.23X170) + (12.7X69) - (6.8X27)=

66 + 1059.1 + 876.3 -183.69 =BMR is 1818

What that means is that I need to consume 1818 calories daily to maintain my current weight if I am doing nothing all day but laying in bed. Hopefully everyone reading this is doing more than that to reach their fitness goals. The next part of this formula is a multiplier known as the Harris-Benedict Formula. Which tells you how many more calories you need to take in depending on your Activity level. The multipliers look like this:

Sedentary: BMRX1.2

Light Active: BMRX1.375

Moderately Active: BMRX1.55

Very Active: BMRX1.725

Intensely Active: BMRX1.9

If I am moderately active, the formula would be 1818X1.55=2818 calories per day. The next step necessary is to break down the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat that we should take in every day. The new formula for each nutrient now looks like this.

Protein: Daily calories multiplied by .30 then divided by 4

Carbohydrates: Daily calories multiplied by .50 then divided by 4

Fat: Daily calories multiplied by .20 then divided by 9

For my numbers, my daily calories are 2818

Protein: 2818X.30 divided by 4=211.35

Carbohydrates: 2818X.50 divided by 4=352.25

Fat: 2818X.20 divided by 9= 62.62 Saturated fat is no more than 20 grams!

The last part of this formula is breaking down your meals into equal portions of each nutrient. If you are eating 5 meals a day. divide your total grams of each nutrient into 5 equal parts. The biggest thing to remember is if you feel you can't each that much in one sitting, simple eat more smaller meals throughout the day.  For those of you trying to lose or gain weight, add or subtract 500 calories to your BMR and leave at that for at least a month.  After that initial change, if your not getting the results you desire, add or subtract 100 calories only per every two weeks until you find an acceptable amount of loss or gain.  You should also retest about every two months because the numbers will change as you lose or gain weight.

Step Number 4: Supplementing your diet

The last step I recommend to all people when calculating a healthy eating plan is supplementation. This is a last resort to ensure that all your daily requirements are met. The hardest nutrient for people to keep maintained in their diet is protein. a protein shake can be used in place of some of the total, but only enough to ensure that your requirements are met. There are other factors that need to be considered like aspiring bodybuilders or elite athletes, which normally require more calories and nutrients than average general health enthusiasts. Also I believe that any type of supplementation should be two things, only a supplement to your current diet not a food replacement strategy, and also it should be taken in a powder or liquid form, not a pill. The body has to break down a pill and that takes alot away from the benefit of a supplement as most is passed through the body and excreted as waste.

As I have mentioned earlier, these steps should be your first consideration when deciding to become healthier and more fit and should definetely be known prior to starting an exercise program. If there are severe medical issues such as diabetes, osteoporosis, or heart disease, a doctor and dietician should be contacted to discuss and special dietary precautions that should be taken. This is a great way for an average healthy individual to get aquainted with how to figure dietary information and start on the path you a healthier lifestyle!