After a long discussion with myself I cannot hold it back no more. I need to release my version of the newly often discussed topic 'Problems I have with the fitness industry'.
As most of these Youtube videos, blogposts and whatever else our social media world proviedes us like to start with when rembeling about health - I would also like to start this post with the phrase I am not a professional in health and nutrition ...
... YET.
That's right, here is the point where I like to draw the line between my post and every other rumor that is floating around there. Every Youtuber likes to back her or himself up with the lillte phase that basicially they do not know what they talk about but they will continue talking for the next 20-50 minutes about it. Please don't get me wrong I do not want to bitch about anyone and me myself and I used to get all of my nutritional information off the internet for YEARS. That is why I think it is so important to finally clear up that topic and really make a point.
I am in schooling and will hopefully be a certified nutritionist by the end of summer this year. If you scroll down my blog you will find a number of low carb recipies, the more protein the better. Ditch the carbs, the fat and calories over all. As I told you I used to get my knowledge off the internet and I will not tell you my old recipies are any bad nor am I going to tell you how to live your life I will just share my knowledge and hope that at some place someone will hear and finally make a change for good.
Am I living a perfectly healthy life? Heck no. Do I want to live a perfectly healthy life? Well tell me how, Noumerous health associations have problems to even match up their recommends. For example You should be eating 3 Portions of dairyproducts on a daily basis, 2 times a week an additional serving of meat or fish and two servings of fats like plant oil or butter. Adding all of these portions together let me know how would a human being like me not be over the amount of 70g of fat on a daily basis? But that's not the topic I was up and about to ramble because you know what? If I was to start this discussion I would be typing without an ending. Feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about that but for now let me clear a couple of things:
#1 PROTEIN
Oh my favorite. The protein the protein... ever watched a youtube video of any 'fitness guru' telling you how much Protein you should be consuming for muscle growth?
Let me tell you: a good 2.0g per kg bodyweight or up to 50% of the daily caloric intake.
Whoa. 50%?! What do you think should be the percentage of your protein intake - do you know? It's only a 10-15% recommendation according to the German community for nutrition as well as the American Heart Association.
But why is that? Isn't Protein just a great source of Aminos and whatsonot that helps my body grow? Isn't it true that if I just eat enough Protein my body is going to refresh itself so much faster and what is not needed will be burned off as energy (because I am replacing my carbs with protein?!)???
Guess what. NO. Protein is a very important Macronutrient to our body. If we don't have it we will be having big time trouble. BUT we shall only be consuming the amount that our body needs in order to work proplerly. Why is that you may ask? Good question! Because our bodies are not able to store protein correctly. Yes we are able to use additional protein as a source of energy when we lack carbs but it sure takes the body a lot of extra work to turn protein into energy sources. So why would we not skip that work for our body by consuming carbs and therefore easily accesable energy right away? Also, what happens to those still too many proteins that we did not need for either recovery and growh nor energy? They have to be thrown out of the body somehow. Is our body even capable of doing that? It sure is, still it does take an extra amount of energy to do so. Too much protein can badly damage the liver and kidney in long-term by putting extra stress onto their work.
What is the right amount of Protein though? Well we learned that 2.0g per kg bodyweight is by far too much. Most health instituions give a range between 0.8g - 1.2g (If you are very active and working out) per Kg bodyweight. This also applies if you are into bodybuilding!!! More Protein does not equal up to more muscle!!! So please do not overdo it on the protein.
Before I keep going with the next point I would also like to clear the fact that you should also be consuming as much plant protein as possible. I would never tell anyone to live fully plantbased I just want to make clear that eating a lot of animal preotein ( which by the way is the more easily provited protein to the human body ) can lead to an overconsumption of animal fats. Especially too much meat can be consumed by trying to meet high protein levels. Try to not outgo the range of 1-2 portions of lean meat a week plus 1-2 portions of cold cuts plus 1-2 portions of either fatty or non fatty lean fish.
#2 Carbs
Talking about overdoing on the protein brings me to my second favorite subject: Not giving enough on the carbs! Low carb seems to be more and more of a great choice for our community to loose weight. Furthermore we even called the carbs the enemy! Why not having someone to blame it on? We sort of believed that we've been told fat is not the enemy no more so now we ought to blame carbs for weightloss. This is not perfectly correct that way if not to say complete bullsht...
Carbs, like any other food group as well can vary on a humongous range of qualities. There is this one rule everybody knows: Choose dark bread and whole wheat over white. And that's all about it you should know. Eat the better-for-you-carbs instead of eating no carbs at all. The healthy human should be eating four portions of Carbs daily - no matter what age. Four portions. What was the last time you reached that goal, huh? Try it out. Have yourself a nice portion of bread, unsugared cereal like rolled oats, potatos and rice and all of that in one day. This will not cause you to gain weight neither to feel bloated, all that's going to happen is that you are fully energized and able to power throughout the day.
Carbs are the best source of energy while can be a great source of fiber an vitamines as well. How much you should be consuming in total you can see on the nutrition cirle already shown above.
Please do not decide to call whatever food an 'enemy'. Let me just tell you from my perspective that getting rid of 'fearfoods' is hard work and takes patience and lots of self love. I lived on a low carb basis tending to almost no carbs at all before and this was probably the worst time of my personal energy level. This would show in basic overall energy, physical as well as psychological, looks and feelings. I do not want anyone to feel the way I did and therefore try to make a point in this post. Please, eat your carbs, eat the rainbow, do not leave off any foodgroup and most important: ENJOY what you eat!
#3 Fat meltes the Fat
As told before: Fat seems not to be the enemy no more. That's great because we should actually be consuming 30% of our daily energy intake by great fatty sources.
But what are these good sources? Doesn't all fat do the same? And once again: No! An Avocado is not the same as butter, duh! We all know that but what excactly should we be consuming.
First and foremost: be aware that at least 20% of your daily fat intake is already hidden in foods where you would not look for it. Bread, Pizza, Cookies. All that is somehow produced mostly contains fat. On top of that you should be careful with trans fats - we all know that - but do you actually turn around the chocolate cream jar and read the label weather it contains hardened or part-hardened fats? You'd rather do in order to provide yourself a longer arterial health!
When it comes to choosing your fats for cooking make sure that you only use high quality products, like cold pressed plant oil for cold usage and mechanical pressed oils for cooking. Be aware that it is not only important to consume this very good source of energy and vitamines but also how important it is to choose the right quality and also to not overdo it on the animal products as already mentioned in the first section.
All in all you see nutrition is not that complicated. It just looks complicated by all the different perspectives we get trhough social media. Please do yourself a favor and don't believe in everything you hear out there. Do your research on various sources and never stop questioning. Once again I do not try to point out anyone for bad knowledge I just want to share my thoughts on this sort of 'online education' gone wrong and I want to stop certain rumors out there.
So if you know anyone who feeps up a fight with her-/himself to reach giant numbers of protein daily send them the link to this article and if only I get one person thinking about this I would be more than glad! Let me know in the comments below what you think of the online community and what your nutrition looked like before and if you are going to change something!
. . . Lots of love to all of you! . . .
Here are my sources:
http://www.vzhh.de/ernaehrung/492012/nutella-das-steckt-drin.aspx
