Macro-nutrients are the nutrients that make up the foods you consume over the course of the day. Proteins, carbohydrates and dietary fats all fall into this category. When you begin any kind of resistance training, it’s very important that you get a good division of these nutrients. Each nutrient has a unique role to play in the body, so the correct mix is vitally important for both training purposes/working out and overall health.
If you currently suffer with muscle mass loss, nutritional deficiencies and energy “lows” then your macro-nutrients are not being regulated as they should be.
Protein Rules
Protein is, without a doubt, the most important macro-nutrient in the human diet. It is essential for life and without it, you would cease to exist. It plays a role in every critical function in your body.
The primary role that protein plays is to form the building blocks in which muscle tissue is made of. Protein rich foods break down into “amino acids,” which are used to repair muscle tissue along with all the other cells in the body. Unfortunately, protein is the one nutrient that most often goes overlooked and requires conscious attention.
This life-giving macro-nutrient is also utilized to help formulate hormones and neurotransmitters, along with other bodily substances that are required to keep you alive and functioning well. If you are resistant training without enough protein, your body will stay in a broken down state for a much longer period of time…never fully recovering before your next workout.
Besides providing the building blocks for a wide variety of body tissues, protein offers other valuable benefits:
Hunger Suppression
If your body is not receiving what it needs daily in the way of protein, you’ll be feeling pretty ravenous all day long. Protein helps because it suppresses hunger.
Carbohydrates break down quickly causing an energy spike followed by a crash. You’re left feeling hungry, weak, and tired. This begins the damaging cycle of consuming more carbohydrates, spiking, crashing and reaching for more. In the end, you gain weight despite your work-out ethics.
Protein rich foods, on the other hand, are slow to break down and digest in the body. This keeps hunger at bay and allows you to go longer between snacks and meals.
If you are dieting or concerned about body weight, protein is your best friend.
Faster Metabolic Rate
Protein has the highest thermic effect of any food. Simply adding more protein to your diet speeds up your metabolic rate. For every 100 calories of pure protein you treat your body to, you’ll burn off about 25 of them. Of course, like all things, you don’t want to overdo it. Consuming a diet that was nearly 100 percent protein would not be healthy either. You won’t be building more muscle or getting any stronger and you’ll likely be taking in more calories than you need. However, a slight increase is a good thing.
How Much Protein?
For the most part, on average, if you are not training, you are encouraged to get 10 to 35% of your day’s calories from protein foods or about .8-1 grams of protein per kilo-gram (1 kilogram equals 2.20 pounds) of body weight. If you are involved in training of some sort, you’ll be breaking down your muscle tissues on a regular basis and this requires a bit more protein – up to around 1 gram per kilogram of body weight daily (if you are on a fat loss protocol, you can increase this to 1.2 grams).
The best sources of protein are those that provide high calorie protein without the addition of saturated fats, other chemicals or additives. Lean meats, fish and seafood, low fat dairy products, eggs and whey protein powder are all good choices. Each one provides different amino acids and nutrients so be sure to take in a wide variety to be at the top of your game.
If you truly want to take command of your life and lose that excess weight/fat permanently, your diet must include the proper amount of macro and micro nutrients in order to support weight and fat loss.
Rebound Free Weight Loss can help you do just that…
For more tools and resources from Carolyn Hansen to assist you in attaining your health and fitness goals and achieving the success you desire in life, please visit:
It’s time to throw away all the false statements you’ve accepted about dieting and exercise and learn what it really takes to stay healthy and fit.
