Food. Single handedly my favorite topic of conversation (I write as a nutrition major whose eating as I type this).
While I could blab on for hours about all aspects of food from culture to cooking techniques, my main focus is to discuss it in relation to healthy habits, specifically eating for progress within fitness.
Though for some people eating is just another thing they need to do in their day to survive, nutrition and food and general have always had a big part in my life. I grew up eating fairly healthy under my parents influence and adopted these traits on my own later in life. However, there was a period of time in which my eating habits became an over-obsession in my life. Without going into too much detail, for a while I suffered from an underconsumption of calories religiously focused on what I ate and how it balanced with my physical activity that it took over my life.
While I still hold on to some tendencies, and I’m sure I always will, the idea that helped me progress out of this unhealthy state was to view food as the energy source that fuels my body. Which when you think about it, it technically is.
I decided I want to get stronger and gain muscle and to do this you simply have to not only more, but the right things.
Even just within the realm of healthy eating there are still thousands of topics to speak on, but I wan to discuss something called macros as this is what I personally use to stay on track with my dietary goals.
Macros, in simple terms, are the nutrients your body needs a significantly large number of in order to function properly. These are: carbs, fats, and proteins. The way you can use macros to balance your diet is by having a specific goal of grams of each of these nutrients to ingest each day. Each persons goals will looks different to reflect their body type, activity level, and goals.
For example, I am looking to slightly gain or maintain my weight, and gain muscle. Therefore, my goals have high levels of protein for muscle building, a decent level of carbs due to my high activity level, and the three macronutrient calorie level adds up to approximately at or above the number of calories I burn on a typical day. Calculating what macros works best for your goals is fairly simple as there are a multitude of apps and websites that walk you through a step by step process to obtain these numbers.
Each person may use their knowledge of their macros differently. They may use it as a general guideline of how much, or what types of food they are eating, or they may follow it fairly strictly depending on the time of year or what events they have upcoming.
Personally, I have an app that allows me to input my macro goals and log what food I eat each day. Since I compete in powerlifting and crossfit it is important to me to make sure I am eating enough protein and just enough calories in general. By having this app I can see throughout the day how much more, and of what foods I need to meet to reach my goals.
The process of nutrition and eating healthy is far from linear throughout your life and “healthy eating” looks different for everyone. As someone who loves food as much as I do I try and focus on it enough to get out of it what I need for optimal performance, but to also remember one meal, day, or even week, of less than optimal eating really does not change much as long as in the grand scheme of things you average out to an intake that suits you and makes you happy.
To incorporate the lesson of flair I tried to add in some common places, irony, and personal insight.