Diet Nutrition

What is diet nutrition. It is the amount of nutrition you get out of the food your are eating. You may not be on a diet, however your regular eating schedule is YOUR diet. So how much nutrition are you getting out of your current diet. If you do not keep a food diary, how will you know how many nutrients are being absorbed by your system?
What about diet nutrition and the gi diet? How many Carbohydrates can you really eat? Do carbohydrate gremlins really come out after 3pm, 6pm, 8pm etc. Will they make you fat? Can you really eat more fat to lose fat? Is a high protein diet the best way to build your body and lose fat?

I am going to address each of these points in relation to diet nutrition and hopefull you will have enough information to make up your own mind. Again no matter what I or anyone else tell you, be sure to test it on yourself and if you find something that really works, stay with it.

1.The carbohydrate makes you fat myth and other carb gremlin myths

Let me begin by stating clearly, the only thing that makes you fat is eating more calories than you burn up in exercise and daily activities - Eating too much food, more than you need will make you fat. Have you heard that there are good carbs and bad carbs, this seems to be a standard line these days, like it is only good and bad carbs to concern yourself with. I say crap!
This makes the assumption that there are only good proteins and good fats. I am sure you will agree when it comes to diet nutrition there are good and bad proteins and fats as well right? So why are we singling out carbs.

So then it would make more sense to say, there are good and bad foods. Healthy and junky. If you eat mostly healthy natural unprocessed food, you automatically are eating, good carbs, good proteins and good fats.
The solution is do not focus on carbs or any other single nutrient, focus on your total diet nutrition.
Find out why a big reduction of any macronutrient will bring your results to a standstill.

What about eating carbs at night (ohhh scary) those little carb monsters wake up at 3pm and just can't wait to shuttle off fat into your fat cells. Let me tell you how this myth started, a small carb reduction can speed up fat loss, I do not dispute that, body builders do this near competition time, but the other effect it has it eliminates water from their systems so those veins pop out. Recent research has shown that there is no benefit to extreme carb reductions.

The truth for the average person is we eat junk food at night in front of the television, watching a DVD etc. Think about it, you will have salty snacks (made with white flout - bad carb), you will have cakes, cookies, soft drinks, ice cream. All these are snack foods that we mostly consume in the evenings. Three things to notice,
1.Most of these foods have saturated and/or trans fat in them
2.Have a load of calories for the small volume of food
3.Are consumed close to bed time

Here are other factors in play, it takes 3 hours to digest your food, eating anything near bed time increases the chances of converting that food to fat as your metbolism slows down when you fall asleep. Rather than saying carbs at night make you fat, better to say eating junk at night (or any other time) makes you fat. Or having meals close to bed time increases your chances of converting that food to fat.

I will give you a better solution for the ultimate diet nutrition.
Do not eat ANYTHING 3 hours before bed time. Not carbs, fat or protein. Nothing. Just water. If you are diabetic or have special nutrition needs do not follow this tip, follow your doctors orders.

Something you will never ever hear in the media regarding carbs. Have you heard of 'de novo lipo genesis'?no I didn't think so. It is the path carbs take to be converted to fat! If you are an exerciser, it does not convert to fat easily. Lack of exercise will make you fat, not carbs. They are your bodys preffered fuel source, if you don't use that fuel up, yes it will be converted to fat.

How much proten do you need for diet nutrition? Most experts will say not that much and sure enough if you do nothing, you don't need that much. If you are an exerciser and care about fitness, you need to have more protein not less. There are all sorts of guides, 1 gm per lb of body weight. These are pretty good guides, but I find it much easier and more helpful, to first work out how many calories you need. This goes over and above nutrient ratios.

Get your calories right first, then be sure to have 1.5 - 2gms per kilo of bodyweight. Depending on your goals around 30% of calories should come from protein. Make sure it is a lean protein, for an easy way to boost your protein intake take some whey protein.