Food Groups

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Created: Monday, 06 May 2013 21:52

Protein

Protein is the most important food group our body requires, along with water of course. The reason why people who regularly train with weights require more protein than a non-weight trainer, is weight trainers rip the muscles while training and require larger amounts of protein to repair the damage and build more muscle fibres. If there is a lack of protein there will be a lack of repair therefore no results in toning the body. As a guide we need 1gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

As with vegetables, you need to select the most unprocessed Protein choices if possible. Whole eggs or egg whites, chicken breast, fresh fish, salmon, canned fish, cottage cheese, lean beef etc are all good examples.
And of course protein powder is a life saver for most people as we require at least 5 servings of protein per day. Make protein the first thing you eat from your plate or what your meals are arranged around.

Carbs

I personally recommend a low/medium Carbohydrate diet mainly for the reason that as weight trainers, we have a higher protein requirement than most, so the major portion of our calories goes towards our protein allowance. Carbs are still a very important group and should not be cut out of your daily plan. If they are removed for too long, a person will eventually give in to carb cravings and the effected person will most likely eat 4 times as much as if they had them in their plans initially.

Carbs also fill us up and give us energy. As a trainer I recognise a very low carb person as skin will not be holding as much water which is not a good thing. They can look drawn in the face and different areas of the skin can look loose. Induldge in carbs to the excess and the body can look bloated and the person will also be very tired. It is very important to determine the right amount of carbs for each individual or at least recognise when the body is requiring more or less.

The most natural forms of carbs is perfect such as potatoes, kumara, yams, oats, rice, pastas, grains and higher carb vegetables and fruit is perfect. Think twice about anything out of a packet which has been overly processed and think of anything which comes from Mother Nature.

You are going to have a recommended serving of carbs at each meal so if you do go over your daily allowance then you cannot expect weight loss, so choose wisely. It is also recommended to learn about High Glycaemic carbs. Leaning about this subject can help you to understand how different foods are going to react to your body. Some foods are low glycaemic which means your blood sugar levels will be low and some are high which means your blood sugars will escalate quickly and your energy will crash quickly as a result.

Fats

Fats are very important for our body, but we mean only the good fats. People often think that taking the fats and carbs or both out of their diets completely will cause them to lose weight. But a body will actually do the opposite and that is it will hold onto fat for back up. Good fats supply our body with energy, but fats also have another job and that is to repair and rebuild our cells. Fat cannot be made by the body which is why the choices we make have a direct impact on how efficient our body runs.

At least 35% of our daily calories should come from good fats such as salmon, fish, nuts, avocados, oils etc. If you eat healthy nutritious foods then basically the figures work themselves out.