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Nutrition 101

Posted By: Joshua Morgan on 01/02/2012

NUTRITION 101

And is a calorie a calorie?

Nutritional science is divided into 2 categories: Macronutrients/ micronutrients and essential nutrients/nonessential nutrients.

Macronutrients are those nutrients that give us calories.  These calories come from protein, carbohydrates, fats, and alcohol.  So it’s really a misnomer to say we consume calories but we should say we consume the various macronutrients that give us energy in the form of calories.  Researchers determine the caloric value of a food item by placing it in a bomb calorimeter.  They set the food and fire and measure the temperature of heat it gives off.  Remember that a calorie is a measure of heat.  A calorie is the temperature required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius.  

To lose a pound of bodyweight you need to burn 3500 calories. Or consume that many more to gain a pound of weight.

For simplicity, I recommend each person gets 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

Macronutrients:

1. Protein: 4 cals/gram
2. Carbs: 4 cals/gram
3. fats (lipids): 9 cals/gram
4. alcohol

Micronutrients:

1. Vitamins
2. Minerals
3. Water

Trouble arises when we start dieting to lose weight or eat in surplus to gain muscle.  So here you are all psyched out and ready to go.  But that’s where a lot of people get stumped.  So they go to the grocery store and buy lean cuisines or some other food product that advertises LOW FAT or LOW CARB or LOW SOMETHING OR ANOTHER.  However, one needs a starting point on how to set how many calories they should consume for their goals.  A very basic and easy way to do this is to multiply your bodyweight by 15. This is a starting point.  Now you’ll have that X amount of calories.  To start with weight loss or gain, start with a 10% increase or decrease (depending on goals)

For example, let’s say you weigh 100.  100x15=1500 calories starting point. To lose, take off 10% and now you’re looking at consuming 1350 calories rather than the 1500. And vice-versa for gaining muscle (hypertrophy).  So you have 1350 calories to work with.  Well we start with 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight=100 grams.
100 grams of protein X 4 cal/gram=400 total calories.  Now you 950 calories left to get from fat and carbs.

Obviously the above is pretty general but it tends to work for most.  And you can always mess with the percentages as needed.  The more accurate way to get your BMR (basal metabolic rate) is through the Harris-Benedict formula (you can google this is if you get curious).  Anyway, short of having a really awesome and expensive machine like a bodpod, the Harris-Benedict BMR formula does a good job.  Or just use the your weightX15 and play with the percentages and you can be successful on your dieting goals this way.

ESSENTIAL VS NONESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS

Nonessential nutrients are not essential that they be obtained from the diet.  This is because they are produced in sufficient amounts in the body.  

Essential nutrients must be obtained from the diet as they are not produced in sufficient amounts or at all by the body.  The criteria for being an essential nutrient is:

1. Nutrient is required for survival
2. Nutrient cannot be made in sufficient amounts (or at all) by the body.

NOTE ON VITAMIN D

While vitamins and minerals are considered essential, I’d call vitamin D conditionally essential.  What this means is that the condition of vitamin D production occurs with sunlight being in contact with the skin (obviously this is simplified).  So, vitamin D supplementation isn’t necessary so long as we’re getting our fix from the sun.

IS A CALORIE A CALORIE???

Well, yes and no. I want to premise the following with I’m/we’re assuming that you have adequate protein consumption.  Protein is king and the most important of all the macronutrients.

With that being said, it’s often said that a calorie is a calorie.  And while on the surface, it seems logical that a calorie is a calorie (after all, what else can it be?).  If that were true, then 1000 calories of candy would be the same as 1000 calories of broccoli.  Now I don’t know about you but the idea of consuming 1000 calories worth of broccoli (or pick your poison as far as vegetables are concerned) is way too time consuming and the sheer mass of that amount of food would be incredible.  However, it doesn’t take much sugar to get to 1000 calories.

On average, a person uses about 10% of their daily energy expenditure digesting and absorbing food, but this percentage changes depending on the type of food you eat.
Protein takes the most energy to digest (20-30% of total calories in protein eaten go to digesting it). Next is carbohydrates (5-10%) and then fats (0-3%).
Thus, if you eat 100 calories from protein, your body uses 20-30 of those calories to digest and absorb the protein. You’d be left with a net 70-80 calories. Pure carbohydrate would leave you with a net 90-95 calories, and fat would give you a net 97-100 calories.
Hmm. Maybe “a calorie is a calorie” doesn’t hold up after all.


To further this, it’s easy over consume calories from jelly beans or candy than from vegetable just as it’s easier to eat 3000 calories from butter than from celery (no human alive could eat enough celery to get 3000 digestible calories).  Many diets are based around this simple fact: make people eat less of the foods that are easy to over consume and/or make them eat lots of those foods that are tough to overeat and they will lose weight because they automatically reduce their caloric intake.

As well, the source of calories can affect other aspects of physiology beyond body composition. Health, energy levels, hunger/appetite and all the rest interact here. So while a calorie controlled diet of jelly beans, butter and protein powder might very well work to lose weight/fat, it probably wouldn’t be as healthy compared to a diet of low GI carbohydrates, healthier oils and lean protein sources.

Understand me here? Issues such as hunger control, long-term adherence, individual variance, athletic performance, and a few others all go into the determination of what food might or might not be a better choice under a given set of circumstances. So while a calorie might be more or less a calorie under somewhat artificial conditions (where calories are or can be strictly controlled), it’s a little more complex than that in the real world.

The shopping list……

‘Healthy’ eating is misunderstood by so many.  And understandably so when people get dieting and eating advice from:

• TV (infomercials, commercials, weight loss shows)
• Family doctor (Most doctors are clueless or know outdated information)
• Magazines
• Rumor/gossip (so and so lost a bunch of weight by eating certain food so it must be true)

The easiest and most simple way to eat healthy would be to skip the middle isles in the grocery store and hit the outside aisles. Think about it for a second. What’s on the outer aisles? Fruits, vegetables, dairy, beef, chicken, seafood, and pork.  I realize some students or parents might object to certain foods like dairy (specifically milk), shellfish, pork, or really any animal product.  And that’s certainly fine.  Obviously some individuals have food allergies and definitely should avoid those foods.  

I promise the vegetarians that as long as they don’t try to convince me of the evils of eating animals I won’t explain the dangers of soy consumption.

It would behoove you to become literate at label reading.

A few words on sugar
1 tablespoon= ~12.55 grams
~12.55 grams = 50 kcals

A twix candybar has 27grams of sugar. This means you’re eating over 2 table spoons worth of just straight sugar.  Remember that 3 teaspoons equals 1 table spoon.  And now think how the typical adult or teenager eats. This gives you an idea of how quickly we can over consume on our total calories.  Even foods like apples, bananas, carrots are pretty high in the sugar area. If a person is dieting to lean out, then carbs and the carb type and the carb timing has to be taken into consideration.  Physique athletes will often cut out fruit because of fructose.  Or they’ll include fruit (more specifically berries) early in the morning when they can tolerate carbs better or after a training session.

And a carb/sugar source shouldn’t be taken by itself.  We want to blunt the insulin response (except with weight training or anaerobic activites), so it is highly recommended that protein be included in all feedings.

There are some good alternatives to table sugar. Stevia and splenda are both easy to get a hold of. Stevia tends to be sweet than straight sugar.  Some people are iffy about splenda because it’s cholorinated.

Basically be mindful of the carb choices you choose.

Confused yet? This stuff gets easier.

3 rants-

1. Forget the BMI. It’s practically worthless
2. The scale can be your enemy. Stay off that sucker.
3. The word diet is a misnomer

Diet is simply what someone eats.  Somehow the word diet has become to mean dieting. What we mean to say is that I have the goal of A and B and to achieve this goal, this is the way I’m going to eat.  That is your diet.

One more rant…
STOP SAYING “I’M TONING!”  And stop asking how you can “tone this part of my body.”   

First, you can’t spot reduce or pick where you lose fat.
Second, when you say you’re toning, what you really mean is you’re trying to lose fat to get leaner.
Third, the word ‘toning’ actually refers to the word muscle tonus.  Muscle tonus is how the muscles look.

Yours in Health,

Joshua Morgan