the do's and don'ts of nutrition?

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Cjkingrock
Cjkingrock Posts: 3
in Food and Nutrition
What are the do's and don'ts of nutrition? It seems like the more I read it starts getting contradictory. For example, high protein low carbs or high carbs high protein. My goal is to get leaner and lose 5-10lbs off or maintain my weight. Is it a better choice to pay more attention to the calories than a brake down of the nutrition or vice versa? In addition how much workout is too much in order to prevent muscle deterioration?

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  • KateK8LoseW8
    KateK8LoseW8 Posts: 824 Member
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    1. Eat plenty of vegetables every day. Loads. As much as you can handle. Make sure you have a wide variety of them, because different vegetables have different vitamins, minerals, etc. Dark leafy greens are especially rich in nutrients.

    2. Eat a bit of fruit every day too. IMO, they taste better than vegetables, and they have some of the same nutrients, though in smaller amounts. Fruits are the candy of the food kingdom. Eat them and be happy.

    3. Eat protein. 0.8 g per kg bodyweight is generally the lowest recommended intake. So figure that out and get at least that much. Dead animals have lots of protein. Use lean protein if you want to minimise the caloric impact of your dead animals. Season your dead animals so that they are delicious. If you don't like the idea of eating dead animals, you can also get your protein from soy beans, other beans, quinoa, and probably more things that I'm not thinking of. If you have trouble meeting your minimum daily, feel free to supplement with protein powder. I like optimum nutrition.

    4. Eat at least a couple of servings of fat every day. Fat is important for vitamin absorption, hormone regulation, and yumminess. Some people think saturated fat is bad, some people think it's not so bad. If you want to decide for yourself, use the internet. If you decide saturated fat is bad, get most of your fat from things like olive oil, nuts, avocado, and fatty fish. If you decide it's not so bad, feel free to get more of it from dairy products and dead animals.

    5. After you've met your nutritional needs via a bucket full of vegetables topped with some fruit, some pieces of dead animal/beans/quinoa/whatever, and some delicious fats, fill the rest of your caloric intake with grains. Unless you decide grains are bad. Once again, use the internet and decide for yourself. Grains don't have a lot of nutrients, but they do serve a very important purpose - they have calories. You need calories. So eat them to get enough of them if you like. Whole grains are better than refined grains because most of the nutrients grains do contain is in the stuff that gets filtered out when they are refined. Also they digest more slowly so your blood sugar doesn't spike and crash, leaving you super hungry. And they have fiber, which is good for making you feel full and giving you good poops. So pick whole grains over refined, but no one ever keeled over from eating ice cream in reasonable quantities once in a while.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    I'm old fashioned...I believe in a balanced diet that is rich in nutrient dense foods...plenty of veggies, a couple servings of fruit...lean proteins and healthy fats. I try to get around 40c/30p/30f which is pretty balanced.
  • Cjkingrock
    Cjkingrock Posts: 3
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    Seems I have to balance things out without favoring certain parts of the nutrition chart. Veggies are going to the least interesting part of my meal. Usually it’s the opposite but, what do you do if u haven’t met your calorie or nutrition goal for the day but your full? Should it be forced?
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
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    Seems I have to balance things out without favoring certain parts of the nutrition chart. Veggies are going to the least interesting part of my meal. Usually it’s the opposite but, what do you do if u haven’t met your calorie or nutrition goal for the day but your full? Should it be forced?
    Don't worry about one day, but plan better in future. Planning your meals ahead of time around meeting your goals can help. If you still struggle to meet your calorie goal, consider that you may have got the wrong idea about losing weight, and may have accidentally strayed into equating eating low calorie food with being healthy (very common when people start actively trying to lose weight!). So, basically aim for more calorie dense foods like cheese, eggs, olive oil, full fat dairy, nuts etc. That way, you get the calories in without feeling too full.

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