Introduction to Nutrition
HIERARCHY OF NUTRITION
Over the next couple of days we are going to explore what really matters when it comes to nutrition. By the end of this series, everything will be a lot clearer and you will finally be able to structure your own nutrition regardless of your goal.
Below is the different elements of structuring a nutrition programme for an individual, ranked in order of importance from most to least. The most important at the bottom and the least at the top. How many people have you known to ask about what supplements they should be taking, without ever having thought about the important things that precede it. Unless those things are in place and taken care of, then supplements are pretty much null....
Below is the different elements of structuring a nutrition programme for an individual, ranked in order of importance from most to least. The most important at the bottom and the least at the top. How many people have you known to ask about what supplements they should be taking, without ever having thought about the important things that precede it. Unless those things are in place and taken care of, then supplements are pretty much null....
How many of you worry about when you should eat your pre-training meal, or worry about how many meals your going to eat today, before even thinking about how many calories you've eaten during the day?
The holy grail of nutrition whether your goal is to gain muscle, lose fat or improve performance is CALORIE BALANCE. If your goal is to gain muscle then you need to be eating more calories than you burn everyday, in conjunction with a strength training programme. If your goal is to lose fat, you need to be expending more calories than what you are eating everyday, or eat less calories than you are expending. If your goal is to improve performance then you need to be eating enough calories to provide the energy you need to perform and to recover quickly enough so that you can repeat those performances in the long term.
The holy grail of nutrition whether your goal is to gain muscle, lose fat or improve performance is CALORIE BALANCE. If your goal is to gain muscle then you need to be eating more calories than you burn everyday, in conjunction with a strength training programme. If your goal is to lose fat, you need to be expending more calories than what you are eating everyday, or eat less calories than you are expending. If your goal is to improve performance then you need to be eating enough calories to provide the energy you need to perform and to recover quickly enough so that you can repeat those performances in the long term.
The question then still lingers. How many calories do I need to eat every day? This will differ between everyone. At a basic level this hold true (most of the time):
Males > Females
Young > Old
Strong Muscular Build > Skinny
*FINDING YOUR MAINTENANCE*
For the purpose of simplicity, the following recommendations are aimed at anyone 15/16+. This information is useful for anyone that has had the idea of changing their lifestyle/nutrition but doesn't know how to do it. The starting point for any nutritional intervention or lifestyle change is to find your maintenance calories. The most effective way to do this is to start tracking what you eat and drink. The latter is important as people will tend to leave out those calories from milk or juice but they all add up and they all count. Track everything, using Myfitnesspal (a calorie tracker app) for several days. Alongside this you should track your weight during those days. As a side note, ensure you weigh yourself at the same time of each day and under the same conditions (hydration and fed levels) if possible to maintain reliability. The caveat here is that females are slightly (vastly) more complex than males so there is a few things that don't apply to females here. One of them is weighing yourself daily and comparing yourself day to day. Due to the complex nature of a females menstrual cycle, this influences your daily weight fluctuations and other physiological process, but we'll speak about them another day.
The next step is to add up the calories for those days and get a total. Divide this number by the number of days to get an average. This will be the average daily intake for each day. If when you compare this average intake with your weight you may start to see a trend. If your weight is showing an upward trend then you may be above your maintenance level. If your weight is on the downward trend then you should be below your maintenance. If your weight remains the same, then you should be roughly hitting your maintenance.
Once you have gotten this far, it sets the platform to form a nutritional strategy which will push you towards your desired goal.
However, your maintenance will vary depending on several factors. Stress, lack of sleep, over training, or if you're currently dieting already.
Nail the basics first. Stop chasing that extra 1% when the other 99% is out of place. Perform Elite.
Males > Females
Young > Old
Strong Muscular Build > Skinny
*FINDING YOUR MAINTENANCE*
For the purpose of simplicity, the following recommendations are aimed at anyone 15/16+. This information is useful for anyone that has had the idea of changing their lifestyle/nutrition but doesn't know how to do it. The starting point for any nutritional intervention or lifestyle change is to find your maintenance calories. The most effective way to do this is to start tracking what you eat and drink. The latter is important as people will tend to leave out those calories from milk or juice but they all add up and they all count. Track everything, using Myfitnesspal (a calorie tracker app) for several days. Alongside this you should track your weight during those days. As a side note, ensure you weigh yourself at the same time of each day and under the same conditions (hydration and fed levels) if possible to maintain reliability. The caveat here is that females are slightly (vastly) more complex than males so there is a few things that don't apply to females here. One of them is weighing yourself daily and comparing yourself day to day. Due to the complex nature of a females menstrual cycle, this influences your daily weight fluctuations and other physiological process, but we'll speak about them another day.
The next step is to add up the calories for those days and get a total. Divide this number by the number of days to get an average. This will be the average daily intake for each day. If when you compare this average intake with your weight you may start to see a trend. If your weight is showing an upward trend then you may be above your maintenance level. If your weight is on the downward trend then you should be below your maintenance. If your weight remains the same, then you should be roughly hitting your maintenance.
Once you have gotten this far, it sets the platform to form a nutritional strategy which will push you towards your desired goal.
However, your maintenance will vary depending on several factors. Stress, lack of sleep, over training, or if you're currently dieting already.
Nail the basics first. Stop chasing that extra 1% when the other 99% is out of place. Perform Elite.
If you are interested in finding out what your own calorie goals are whether it is your maintenance calories etc, then here's what you need to do!
Okay so maybe 2-4 are unnecessary but you get the idea. Get emailing, everyone loves free stuff!
- Email [email protected] with the subject of the email as "What's My Maintenance".
- Refresh your inbox vigorously until we have sent you said calculator with instructions.
- Tell all your mates how fantastic it was and how they too should consider emailing us and following us on all social media platforms.
- Tell us a bit more about yourself so we can gain a better idea of our fan base so that we can tailor our content towards what you want to see.
Okay so maybe 2-4 are unnecessary but you get the idea. Get emailing, everyone loves free stuff!
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