Category: Nutrition

So I went out boozing last night. Yeah it’s not the best thing to do if you want to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but in life you have to keep a balance and so I go out from time to time. I don’t really understand the point of drinking yourself silly, so I try not to overdo it, however alcohol has its effects, especially as you get older. Today I woke up around 12pm, but still feeling sleepy though. I don’t really have a hangover, but feel like the best thing to do would be to go back to bed. The bad things that come out of doing things like this is that you get your body out of a rhythm, as your body is used to going to sleep at a certain time and then waking up at a certain time, and this just gets it out of whack. Not only will you get a bad sleep this night, but many nights after as well. Sleeping is very important in the recovery process and if you don’t sleep enough, you rob your body of the chance to recover and grow.

Another bad thing that comes out of drinking beer (and any alcohol actually) is that what you are getting is a lot of calories, but these are empty calories (especially empty carbs) . You might say: “great”, if you are trying to gain weight, however empty calories does not mean muscle, but instead it just means more fat. So you will get calories that will go straight into being turned into fat in your body. So what you will end up looking like is skinny-fat, not the most sexy look of them all. 🙂

At this point I would like to officially unveil the concept of “beer time” (patent pending 🙂 ). This means every time you are drinking beer, in order to keep yourself in check, you will start counting beer time. I already mentioned the concept in a previous post, but here I make it an official term and my contribution to the betterment of humanity. It’s a very simple concept really. An average beer is around 150 calories. A while back, I was on one of those elliptical machine that tries to pretend it’s a cross-country skiing machine, and noticed that I burned around 150 calories every 15 minutes. I was joking with a friend of what this means for our beer drinking habits and this is where I came up with the concept of beer time. So when you are out and drinking that glass of beer, remember that that is 15 minutes on the elliptical machine. When you take another glass of beer, that is 30 minutes on that elliptical machine. That’s the amount of time it will take you to burn all those empty calories you got from drinking beer. So think about that the next time you are drinking beer, and hopefully it will keep you in check. Unfortunately many people rack up weeks worth of beer time in just one night of going out. 🙂
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John Cisna, who is a teacher in Iowa, decided to go on an all McDonald’s diet and with it managed to lose weight and lower his cholesterol! 🙂

He had the kids in his class plan his meals based on the nutritional value of each meal. “What is cool is when you see one kid say, ‘It’s not McDonald’s that makes you fat. It’s your choices that make you fat,'” Cisna said. This gives further credence to your lifestyle determining whether you are healthy or not.

Is this the start of a new weight loss dieting fad? The McDonald’s Diet? 😛
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Fats are a big topic of discussion these days. Everybody wants to lose fat. Everywhere you go, you see things like “low fat”, “no fat” or “fat free”. What are fats and do they deserve the bad reputation that they get?

Fats are one of the three main macronutrient types for your body, together with proteins and carbohydrates. Unlike carbohydrates, some types of fats are considered essential for your body and life. This means that you need to get them from the outside by ingesting food, otherwise your body cannot produce some elements necessary in order to keep functioning. Fats are often misunderstood by the general public. They have a very bad image, however in fact, many types of fats are good for you and your health. Your body needs fats in order to perform its functions. The key here is in the types of fats that you consume and also the amount. If you want to gain weight and muscle, then fats should definitely be a part of your diet.

Fats are a wide group of compounds that are usually soluble in organic solvents, but insoluble in water. They are also called triglycerides, because chemically they are triesters of glycerol and any of the several types of fatty acids. When triglycerides are metabolized, the glycerol in them gets converted to glucose, which means usable energy for the body. The enzymes that break them down are called lipases and are produced in the pancreas.

Fats are a subset of a wider group of compounds called lipids. Lipids include triglycerides, phospholipids, and also sterols (one type of sterol is called cholesterol). You get all of these types of lipids when you eat, however triglycerides make up the most significant group of lipids in our diets. They make up around 95% of the lipids in our food and bodies.

Sources of Fats
Fats come in two forms: liquid and solid. The ones that at room temperature come in liquid form are called oils. Most oils come from plants (edible plant fats). Examples of these oils include ones from: palms, soybean, rapeseed (a subtype of rapeseed is for example canola oil), sunflower seeds, peanuts, cottonseeds, palm kernels, coconuts, olives, corn…etc. Solid fats usually come from animals. The main example are the fats from under the skin of different animals. In some cases, fats from animals can also come as oils, for example fish oils.

Sources of “good fats”:
avocados
olives
tofu
sunflower oil
canola oil
olive oil
nuts
peanut butter
sunflower seeds
pumpkin seeds
flaxseeds
fish
seafood
milk

Structure of Fats
All triglycerides have similar structures, being composed of a glycerol molecule and three fatty acids attached to it. Fatty acids are one of the main constituent parts of fats, but what are they? A fatty acid is a type of carboxylic acid and consists of a long hydrocarbon chain capped by a carboxyl group (COOH). They can serve as fuel and also form adenosine triphosphate, otherwise known as ATP. ATP can basically be described as the engine of the body, as these enzyme molecules can store energy and then release it when it is necessary.
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Carbohydrates make up a very important part of our daily diets, and most people consume the majority of their calories from them. Much has been written about what role they should play in our diets and much of this is contradictory. These contradictory pieces of information serve as a source of confusion for many people who want to find out about what types of dietary guidelines they should follow. Some people say you should eat a lot of them, while others say you should eat a low carb diet. All these strategies have their merits, but might not be for everyone. Your basic strategy on the amount of carbohydrates depends on what type of a person you are, what your goals are and also what your activity levels are. What might be the “right” carbohydrate strategy for one person, might not be the best one for another person.

So what actually are carbohydrates and what do they do? Carbohydrates are macromolecules with various combinations of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Together with proteins and fats, they form one of the three main nutrient types in the human diet. Unlike the other two however, no carbohydrate type is considered essential, as the human body itself can manufacture any type of carbohydrate that it needs.

There are two main roles of carbohydrates in organisms: to serve as storage of energy, and in some organisms carbohydrates also serve a structural role and provide structure (for example cellulose in plants, chitin in arthropods). There are also other roles that carbohydrates play. One type of carbohydrate, ribose, also forms part of coenzymes and can be found in the structure of RNA. Another carbohydrate, deoxyribose, forms part of DNA. Carbohydrates also participate in things like fertilization, blood clotting, development and also play a role in the immune system. Furthermore, scientific studies also show that an adequate supply of carbohydrates (glucose) has a positive effect on the brain.

Most carbohydrates in our diets come from plants, although milk (comes from different types of mammals) also contains lactose (which is a carbohydrate). In terms of energy, a carbohydrate is about 4 calories per gram.

Carbohydrates can be divided into 4 chemical groupings (with each grouping containing several types of carbohydrates):
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Whenever you read anything on bulking up, one of the main tips is usually to eat lots of protein. So what is protein? Proteins are large macromolecules consisting of long chains of amino acids. Our body needs protein in order to be able to function properly. Common sources of protein include eggs, chicken, fish, turkey and other things.
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We have all seen the notorious beer bellies. Whether on the beach or anywhere else, many men sport a protruding gut which makes them look pregnant. 🙂 This is actually something that can be even seen with skinny guys. Some skinny guys, while otherwise very thin, can also be seen sporting pot bellies, leading to the very sad condition of being skinny-fat. So how does drinking beer and alcohol in general affect weight gain and fat gain?
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Drinking water is one of the basic things that you need to do every day. Your body needs water in order to function. That’s why it is very important to stay hydrated and to keep constantly replenishing your fluids. This is especially important if you want to gain weight and muscle and generally if you do any type of exercise. When exercising, your body raises its temperature and so in order to cool down, it starts releasing sweat, which is primarily composed of fluids. So in this way your body is losing fluids fast and needs them to be replenished. Dehydration is a serious health risk. You also need to keep a balance between the amount of fluids in your body and electrolytes. If this balance is not maintained or if in general your body loses its fluids, then serious problems will arise.
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Do you remember the scene from the movie “Idiocracy” where they talk about electrolytes? Throughout the movie they keep repeating the phrase: “It’s got electrolytes!” WTF are electrolytes? That was the initial reaction that I had (people who know me know that I use the phrase “WTF” a lot 🙂 ). I’ve seen it on sports drinks, but never had any idea of what it actually means.
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What is a microbiome you ask and why I should I care about it? Also what does this have to do with weight gain? The microbiome are the communities of microorganisms, literally trillions, that live inside the human body. Many people don’t realize that besides things like organs, blood, hormones…etc., the body also contains trillions of little microorganisms that live inside it and have a significant impact on it. These are most often single-celled organisms belonging to the Archaea kingdom. Archaea are prokaryotes and have no cell nucleus or organelles within themselves. There are however some bacteria as well. All these are generally considered harmless and usually do not cause disease (except for some rare circumstances). Many of them can aid the human body in a variety of functions, but recent changes in the human environment have also altered some aspect of the microbiome for the worse. Recent research indicates that some of the microorganisms can play a significant role in how a person gains weight.
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