Here are the notes on Fuel 101 from last week. Big thanks to Sarah Pruitt for taking the time to write them up!
___
Nutrition is the foundation for changing the dynamic of your body, your performance and your life. Once you get your nutrition in balance for your life and your goals, you will see significant change in all areas of your life. Without proper nutrition to support your life and what goals you are working to attain, you could actually see negative effects including but not limited to muscle atrophy, lack of brain and nervous system support, and actually holding on to fat when you don’t want to.
The old adage of eat less and move more to lose weight is simply not true. We know now that chronic cardio actually creates constant inflammation in the body (read- not a good thing). Not bringing in enough calories only serves to create a stress response of “survival mode” for your body in which the body will preferentially store fat. This is actually a diminishing value of return for your efforts.
How do you get the most out of your efforts to get the most out of your body? The proper fuel for YOU.
How do you find your best fuel? Like all paths to greatness, try, and try again. You are an experiment of one. What works for someone else might not work for you and vice versa. Get ready to put your lab coat on, try a few things out and see what provides the best results for you.
How do you know what to play with and tweak to meet your needs? First you must understand the basic nutrients our bodies need and the best ratio for your body and goals.
The Big 3- Macro Nutrients
Protein = building blocks for cells (muscles, organs, etc) and hormones in the body.
Carbohydrates = provide energy & micro nutrients.
Fats = aid in vitamin absorption, insulates nerves that transport information through your body, provides energy and creates satiety.
Your body requires the right ratio of these nutrients. In addition to the quantity, the quality of these macro nutrients you are ingesting on a daily basis matters.
As far as ratios go, most people do well on a higher protein, lower carb, mid range fat diet (based on percentages) however, there are certain individuals (due to blood type and other factors) that do better on a lower protein, lower carbohydrate, higher fat diet, and many options in between. If you are willing to put a little time in to experiment, try and see what happens, you will be able to find the correct ratio for your body.
What we tend to see with many of our trainees, is that they are chronically under-eating protein. Remember that protein supplies the building blocks (in the form of amino acids) to building cells. Building muscle tissue is especially important when you’re recovering from a hard workout.
Protein Recommendations:
Men- 0.8 to 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight
Women- 0.5 to 0.8g of protein per pound of bodyweight
Carbohydrate Recommendations:
Carbohydrate need and utilization varies widely. Finding your optimum range will take some tinkering. Here are a few numbers for you to play with.
For weight loss- 100g of carbs a day or less. Limit fruit to 1 serving a day.
For maintenance- 150-300g a day. This will be widely personal based on activity level, goals and utilization.
Fat Recommendations:
Fat consumption in the 30-40% range of total daily calories is going to be ideal. Tracking mine is a little eye opening because without trying, my fat intake is generally north of 50% of my total daily cals.
Monitor what you eat using an app or website like My Fitness Pal or My Fit Day for two weeks and see what sort of results you get from that ratio, if you like your results, continue with that plan, if you don’t, try a different ratio of protein to fat to carbs and see where you stand at the end of another two weeks. Continue until you land on the best plan for you. It will take some time, but the end result will be more than worth your willingness to experiment.
As you are experimenting with ratios, remember that fruits and vegetables are the most ideal good carbohydrates and there are no essential nutrients in other carbohydrates (grains and sugars). Though you think you’ll miss those vices, you’ll really only miss the habit of eating them. Also remember to note how much you are eating. There are apps like the ones mentioned above to help you stay within a caloric amount goal so that you don’t consume too much of a good thing. You can check out the website MacroFit has a macro calculator to find hard numbers for you to follow. Enter your gender, age, height, weight, activity level, and goal (weight loss, bulking, etc) and the site gives you the amount of calories you should consume per day based on your goals. It’s a great tool as you tweak your eating to discover what works best for you and achieving your own greatness.
Let’s look at quality of the macro nutrients you are consuming. If you are choosing poorer quality, more processed, further away from the earth foods, you are not going to get the same results as you would from a vegetable or fruit in it’s most natural, whole state. Do potato chips have calories for energy and some nutrients? Yes, you can read the back of the bag and clearly see. Would eating a fresh potato prepared by your own hands have a much high nutritional value? Absolutely. Choosing the potato chips over the potato is like stepping over $100 bills to pick up pennies. Do the pennies have value, can you spend them? Sure, but, you can buy a lot more with $100 bills. As much as you can, pick unprocessed, as close to the earth as possible food. If you must make choices and need to know the hierarchy of fruit and vegetable nutrition, pick fresh over frozen and frozen over canned. Fresh fruits and vegetables will always deliver the highest nutritional value and if you can go organic, all the better. And while we are on the subject, sweet potatoes offer far more micro nutrients than a white potato, and personally, I far prefer the taste as well. Also, juicing is not the best idea if you are trying to lose weight. Keeping the sugars of those fruits tied to the fiber of the fruit makes the body work harder to get and use the nutrients than if you juiced and sent the sugar straight to your system with no buffer.
When choosing meats, the closer to the farm the better. Yes, organic from the grocery store is better than non and if you can go to a farm like Burgundy Beef and pick up meat from an animal that was alive not that long ago and know how the animal was fed and lived, that is even better. You want the animal to have not eaten foods you don’t want to eat. Do your best to avoid meat from an animal that was given a diet of grains like corn. Grass fed and finished are words to look for in beef and pork and free range chicken.
Now that you have the basics of experimentation with nutrient ratios and the importance of the quality of your macro nutrients, let’s talk about where things get derailed.
Where Things Go Wrong
First up, the biggest culprit is sugar. There is no redeeming quality to sugar whatsoever. Sugar (in any form from frosting to honey) is cheap energy, your body does not have to work to convert it to fuel. By picking a sugar item over meat or vegetables you are again stepping over $100 bills to pick up pennies. If you are ingesting sugar, any glucose (fancy name for sugar) that does not get absorbed and used by the body potentially becomes stored as fat. Insulin is the storage hormone responsible clearing sugar (glucose) from the blood. The body wants to store sugar in the muscle cells for use but only has limited storage there. Fat cells have the potential for unlimited storage, so once reserves in the muscle are full, the body will convert glucose to fatty acids for storage. Insulin is also a signal for you body to do other things as well and on overload, this hormone can keep you fat. The presence of insulin tells your body “We’ve got enough” so you don’t break down stored fat for utilization. In other words, you’re creating a loop of storing fat and the inability to break it down. As an additional problem, over time if bombarded with sugar, your cells you will become insulin resistant which creates a whole host of problems far larger than not being able to lose weight.
Fueling your body with the proper nutrients will get you fuller faster and your body actually works to break down those nutrients to be used by the body. When you eat the foods your body was designed to eat, your body works as it was designed to do so and you will lose those cravings for less nutritious foods.
What are somethings to avoid so that your diet can yield optimum results for weight loss? The following foods are actually like giving money away as far as food value goes.
Nix These 4
Sugar = no redeeming quality whatsoever.
Grains = actually leach nutrients from your body, are an anti-nutrient, and can be irritating to many (celiac, intolerant) and all humans are sensitive.
Legumes = contain lectins which is a gut irritant for some. That’s good for the seeds thus the plant as it will be quickly eliminated by the host in fertile soil.
Dairy = experiment to see the fall out for you. Do you gain weight eating cheeses and drinking milk or does fermented dairy like yogurt help you lose weight? Do you notice you are more congested consuming dairy than not and adjust accordingly. dairy is an irritant to many as well. Congestion and puffiness are your body’s way of fighting off things that are harmful to it and if you find yourself congested or puffy after consuming dairy, lay off of it and see if that clears up.
What Do I Do?
Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. That’s where the freshest food lies and subsequently the food with the most nutrients and least inflammatory properties. Buy foods that spoil just eat them before they do. You’ll also find the foods that your body was designed to eat. Mix it up, variety is not only the spice of life, it’s the key to avoiding autoimmune diseases.
Meal prep is a huge key to your success and there are many avenues to help you. Once A Month Meals and Field to Meal are both great options and there are a bevy of websites with really great paelo recipes for free. Nom Nom Paleo, Against All Grains, The Clothes Make The Girl, Whole 9, and many others as well as a recipe section here on the CFW webpage.
If you are crunched for time, a good go to is browning ground beef in olive oil and add a package of frozen broccoli, quick, easy and nutritious. Another good option is making a salad full of dark leafy greens and bright colors like from tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, and any other veggies you have, add a piece of grilled chicken or fish and make your own salad dressing with any of the following: olive oil and coconut aminos or honey and mustard mixed with olive oil or cold processed avocado oil and fresh lemon juice are all tasty.
Using coconut oil for frying/cooking at high heat and extra virgin olive oil for cooking at low to medium heat will round things out.
Assess the situation, determine what is best for you and the goals you are trying to achieve. It’s worth taking some time to ask yourself, “What is my goal? What am I trying to achieve? What am I willing to do to get there?” Write down your answers and keep your goals in mind. What you’re eating is a different mindset than move more and eat less. Make informed choices with the information you now know. Do you want the cheap and easy road or is it worth the commitment to make the changes and experiment until you find what is best for you and what will yield the most results for your body and performance?
___
Dr. Chris Biles, DC is the head trainer and owner of CrossFit Waxahachie. Established in 2010, CFW is a premier strength and conditioning facility for athletes of all levels- beginner to advanced.