In such a health conscious period, it’s hard to decide which fad diet is best for you. At the end of the day, it’s like what your mom said when you were a child, “Eat your veggies and play outside.” With enough exercise and good, wholesome food, everyone could help themselves enormously. The problem is that people often do not know how they should measure their food. They wonder what’s more important, fiber or carbs; meat protein or vegetable and dairy protein; bread or fruit? Similar such questions go on forever unanswered, but the true answer is simple: learn about macronutrients and you can quickly make your body happy. If you take advantage of knowing what a fat, a carbohydrate, and a protein truly is to your body, you will see results very quickly in any diet you try.
The first category of macronutrient I think is important that people understand better is fat. I know what you’re thinking: fat is bad for you. It’s practically a sin to say this out loud, but fat is okay, and it is even necessary to eat fats. So let’s do a quick technical breakdown of what a fat is to your body and what it does. Consuming fats causes a mild insulin spike, and when they are digested they are turned into something called a blood triglyceride. A blood triglyceride is essentially the energy you get from dietary fat. Additionally, when fats and carbs are consumed together the carbs become more sugary, which if your body does not need, will be stored as fat deposits. However, since we once were animals our bodies crave fats and they take the priority when we digest food.
So, say for a meal you made fried chicken and potatoes, the grease from the chicken and the fat in the butter from the potatoes would be digested first. Additionally, this is an easy explanation for why your body feels full after eating something greasy and fatty like a bag of chips. Finally, the most important thing to get from this is not to eat fats after working out if you want to see the best results. Since fat would be processed first, your body would not be able to rebuild muscles with protein or restore energy that was expelled because it would be too busy digesting fat. So, if you want to see best results in your diet, try limiting your fats to a special treat for eating healthy, natural fat, or the fat used in cooking and instead stay away from foods that are super fatty like chips, chocolate bars, and other junk food.
Next up to bat is the carbohydrate — the food everyone loves to hate the most. Carbohydrates are found in things like bread, pasta, fruit, and desserts. Carbs, like fat, create a massive insulin spike, but the amount depends on the source of the carb. Carbohydrates are different than other macronutrients because once your body is full of carbs, they turn directly into fat deposits. The weird part about carbs is that there is no proper number for how many your body needs. My boyfriend can hardly eat carbs because his body reacts to pasta just like it would a Hershey’s bar, but I can eat carbs for breakfast, lunch and dinner and my body won’t directly store them as fat.
The trick with carbs is to find them naturally and add them as a compliment to your meal. Eating a bagel for breakfast, a bowl of pasta for lunch, and a plate of fries for dinner is not healthy but if you eat fruit and yogurt for breakfast, a salad with a side of brown rice for lunch, and a chicken breast with salad and croutons for dinner, your body will have a much healthier reaction to the fats, carbs, and proteins. Another form of carbs is fiber, which do not cause insulin spikes like starch or sugar-based carbs would. Fiber often comes from enriched products or natural products like vegetables. Fiber is important because it encourages your body to remove bad things like excess carbohydrates or fats so that they are not absorbed. To ensure you are getting enough fiber, you should have around four servings of fruit and vegetables daily.
Last but not least of the food-based macronutrients is protein. Proteins are essential to your body for rebuilding tissue and come in two forms: slow proteins and fast proteins. Slow proteins digest slowly and generally come from animals. Fast proteins however, digest fast and are great for restoring your body. Fast proteins mostly come from dairy and plants. Proteins do best when they are consumed with carbs because it helps them absorb into the body, this is an important tip because it utilizes the insulin spike that comes from carbs as a way to get protein to where it is needed. The more amino acids in protein, the better it is for the body to use. Protein that is enriched with amino acids generally comes from animals such as meat, eggs and dairy. Proteins that come from plants can be absorbed much less efficiently. As a vegan, protein is a big worry, but protein is found in many sources besides meat. It can be found in broccoli, cereals, and it is even enriched in some pastas. Proteins are a bodily requirement and should be eaten with every meal and even some snacks. The important thing to do is vary slow and fast digesting proteins so that your body never goes without.
In order to see the best results in your diet or even just to understand how your body wants you to eat better, knowing at least the basics about macronutrients is necessary. Macronutrients rely on each other to keep your body healthy and well nourished. Though oftentimes people refer to a carb as sugar or fruits, a protein as meat or whey, and fat as terrible, the truth is that your body craves these things because it wants something they have. If interested, I will be following this article up with one on micronutrients and what your body needs to fight off germs, keep your teeth and bones white and healthy, and even micronutrients you should eat to boost your diet’s effectiveness.
