Nutrition Plan

What you eat, when you eat and how much you eat are all very important for your health and general well being. Knowing what types of food you should eat and what types you should not eat is a subject for debate, but one we will try to tackle here.

The one thing you will not find here is any type of "diet". By "diet" I am referring to "Atkins", "South Beach", "Chicken Soup" and the never ending list of fad "diets" that seem to come and go. Some of these have good points, most, not so much.

I am talking about a solid nutrition plan for your daily life. What does your body need more than anything? Protein. What does it need the least? Sugar. In between those are fat, carbohydrates and fiber. We need these in the correct amounts to give our bodies what they need.

For example, I currently weigh 160 pounds and am 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Its recommended that I eat 122 grams of protein, 244 grams of carbohydrates and 54 grams of fat per day, with an intake of 1450 calorie per day to lose weight, 1950 calories to maintain weight.

A double Whopper sandwich from Burger King is 900 calories, 47g protein, 51g carbs and 57g fat. Add fries and a drink and that's your whole days worth of calories in one meal and nowhere near enough protein for the day. You will need to learn how to spread out all those calories throughout the entire day to achieve your weight loss goals and to maintain good health.

The first thing to do to achieve those goals is to eat smaller meals. I eat every 2 hours. Breakfast at 7:00 am, snack at 10:00 am, Lunch at Noon, snack at 2:00 and 4:00 pm, dinner at 6:00 pm and if there's room in the plan, a snack at 8:00 pm.

The second thing is to keep track of what you eat and how much of it. I log everything I eat, the vitamins, the water I drink. All of it. Use a log book, a phone app, an online tracker, it doesn't matter as long as you track the Calories, Protein, Carbs and Fat intake daily.

We will talk about reading nutrition labels in another post to help you figure out what foods are better for you than others. There are many factors to good health and having a solid nutrition plan is a good foundation to build on.