When we look into history of nutrition, we can see how current dietary guideline was created under influence of information that was not appropriate, which consequently lead to health pandemic in the United States and possibly throughout the world.
In this article, I've personally created a dietary guideline based off of data which I've shared in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.
Although the dietary guideline presented here is based off from data and studies, it has not been reviewed by any health organization. Because many of the information will be conflicting against their guideline, please do your research and find if the information provided in this article is applicable for you.
Remember, these are guideline and it is just a starting point. Depending on your race, gender, age, activity level, food allergy, type of diet you follow, what suits for you may be different.
Food Consumption Frequency
Food consumption frequency should vary based on your health and fitness goal. It is very important to understand that it is ok not to eat food every time you are hungry.
For fat loss, you should be consuming less frequent anywhere from 1-3 meals per day including snack until you meet your ideal body fat.
For weight gain, you should consume more frequent from 3-6 meals per day including snacking.
For maintaining, you should be consuming 2-4 meals per day including snack.
Meal does not have to be eaten at the specific time. For example, breakfast does not have to be eaten immediate after waking up. Lunch can be earlier or later based on your schedule and does not need to be at noon.
Fasting, intermittent fasting, time restricted feeding can be practiced as needed, however, those who are underweight, pregnant, breastfeeding, should consult with their physician and dietician before applying to their lifestyle.
Food Source Consideration
All of your food source should be coming from natural food source regardless of what diet you are following, including vegetables, meat, seafood, grains, beans, salt, oil, spices and etc. Food rich in sugar, refined carbohydrate, overly processed food, and imitation food should be avoided.
Food Amount
We do not have calorie receptor or hormone to determine how much calorie we should consume. Calorie concept was adopted from physics where they measure energy out put after bombing the source, which is known as bomb calorimetry. This cannot apply to food source be not all food sources are processed in our body in same way.
It is somewhat pointless to be considering how much calorie you should be consuming or monitor how much calorie you are consuming since it will never be accurate. However, this does not mean you can eat as much as you want and stuff yourselves.
How much you should be eating should be determined by how much your body wants. To do so follow the next steps
Eat when hungry - if you are not hungry, there is no point in eating.
Eat slow - spend about 15-20 minutes for each meal.
Eat until 80% full - you should be able to light physical activity like walking after each meal.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate should be consumed for its rich micronutrients rather than amount of energy you can acquire from it.
Carbohydrates have very wide selection from broccoli on one side to sugar on the other side. It is very important to distinguish starch based carbohydrate such as potatoes, broccoli, carrots and so on to sugar based carbohydrate such as majority of fruits, candies, muffins donuts and so on. Despite their nutrient content, food sources containing sugar especially fructose type sugar should be avoided to prevent metabolic disease such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and so on.
Amount of carbohydrate should be consumed is depending on the individuals health condition, such as blood sugar level, HbA1C, and choice of carbohydrate. You should frequently be consuming vegetables that are high in fiber including but not limited to broccoli, spinach, asparagus, onion, cabbage, radish and so on. Even those who are consuming high amount of animal protein should be adding fiber to eliminate pollutant, which can cause stress to our body and may have negative impact to our immune system.
As a starter, if you are following mixed diet with animal protein, you should be consuming about 6 fist size amount of vegetable based carbohydrates. Fruits should be consumed 1-2 handful amount per day. However fruits consumption should be minimized or eliminated if the blood sugar or insulin level is high, until these are managed.
Protein
Protein is the building block to all of our body parts. Whether it is skin, hair, muscle, or organ, it is required to be repaired on regular basis. Our body goes through tremendous amount of stress and damage, from exercise, pollution, virus and so on, which required repair and protein or amino acid plays vital role of this repair.
When we speak about protein, we immediately think about meat but there is more variations. Some of the excellent source of proteins and amino acids are beef, pork, poultry, seafood, egg, beans, spinach, hemp and so on. We will discuss later on regarding saturated fat in fat section.
Amount of protein we should consume is important, however, this number may vary depending on your physical activity, age, gender, and current health condition. Yet the number range from 0.5g/lb - 1.0g/lb. If you are physically active you should be consuming closer to or even more than 1.0g/lb of body weight. Therefore, if you weight 180lb and exercising 2+hours per week should be consuming about 180g of protein per day. As we age will need higher range of protein for our rate of protein synthesis slows down. Because of the variation with amount, protein amount can be difficult to determine. Use your palm size as a guide and have 3-6 palm size serving of protein per day.
Fat
Fat is guided wrong since 1950s to make carbohydrate, especially sugar to be life saver, especially saturated fat. First of you will not be consuming pure saturated fat. Every food source that are high in fat has balance between saturated fat and unsaturated fat (poly and mono). Depending on the food source, the ratio may vary. For example steak is high in saturated fat, and low in polyunsaturated fat. Avocado has higher amount of monounsaturated fat and low in polyunsaturated fat and saturated fat.
So is saturated fat bad? There is no study has ever proved the connection between saturated fat leading to clogging artery which causing heart diseases. There has been association studies but was never successfully proven.
But fat has high calorie! Yet it does not stimulate insulin. It is very important source for those who has diabetes or insulin resistance. What is more health hazard fat is industrial vegetable oil, such as cottonseed, soybean, corn and vegetable oil. They are all high in polyunsaturated fat that is suggested by American Heart Association but can easily be oxidized. When you look at the process to make these oils, and sitting in plastic container under the light of grocery store for days and months and then used under heat for cooking, you can kind of see it is not very healthy. Not only it is unhealthy but may damage your healthy cells and feed cancer cells.
However, not all polyunsaturated fat are unhealthy. Omega fats are also polyunsaturated fat and plays very important role in our health. Omega 3, which is high in seafood, nuts, avocado, pastured egg, can help improve the health of our cells, increase our metabolism, strength and muscle increase, when consumed more than 3g. Omega 6 is also misunderstood. It is know as inflammatory fat but when processed right Omega 6 can be converted to healthier fat called gamma linoleic acid and help rejuvenate your cells.
Despite these facts, you should minimize consuming industrial vegetable fat and pastured butter, avocado oil, or olive oil for cooking which has less chance of oxidizing. Extra virgin olive oil is highly recommended for cooking because of polyphenol which minimize the oxidation process which other oils are lacking.
Other fats, outside of common ones, to consider consuming is avocado, olive, seeds, nuts, and hemp. Start by eating 6 thumb size portion of fat sources per day.
Salt
According to Dietary Guideline 2015-2020, salt or sodium intake should be less than 2.4g. U.S. population consume at least 4 cups of coffee a day. 1 cup of coffee can deplete 4g salt through urine because of caffeine. 1 game of soccer can deplete 6g of salt by sweat. There is no wonder U.S. population is high in mineral deficiency which is leading to thyroid issues, blood pressure, insulin resistance and so on.
So how much salt should you be consuming?
Before we get to amount of salt let's consider quality and type of salt. Obviously, we do want natural source of salt rather than salt you can get from chips or canned soups. Popular types of salts are Celtic Salt and Himalayan Salt but there are more than 300 different types of natural sea salts around the world and content of mineral is different.
Himalayan salt for example, is high in potassium and Celtic salt is higher in magnesium and iodine. So you should be selecting salt according to what your body is needing. If you have cramping on regular basis, Himalayan salt may be better. If you are low in magnesium or having thyroid issues, Celtic salt may be better choice.
How much salt should you be consuming? Answer is "it depends". If you drink caffeinated beverages you will need more than those who does not. If you exercise or play sports, you will need more, and sports drink does not provide enough mineral sources. Use 2.4g of salt as baseline and consume 3g more based on your physical activity and/or caffeine and alcohol consumption.
Interesting thing about our body is when we consume too much salt our body will refuse to consume more, which is opposite from sugar.
Water
Water consumption has been preached heavily but never applied properly. We pretty much know the importance of water because of how much of our body is made of water. 90% of our blood is made of water, therefore, when dehydrated the blood volume decreases. This may lower blood pressure but will increase heartrate. 79% of muscle is made of water. Not only you will sweat during your workout but to replenish and restore muscle, you will need water or microdamage from exercising may remain. 73% of brain and 31% of bone is made of water. Overall, over 60% of our body is consist of water.
So how much water should we consume. For starter use 60% of body weight in pounds and use that number for ounce of water. For example, if you weigh 150lb, 60% will be 90lb. So you should be consuming 90 oz. When exercising, we can lose up to gallon of water. Which means we do need to replenish or we are dehydrated. Therefore, it is vital to hydrate as we exercise since it is challenging to drink gallon of water after the workout. If you consume caffeinated or alcoholic beverages you should consume about 16 oz. of water per drink.
Supplementing
Supplementing can be used for those who follow certain diet to make sure all of the necessary nutrients are consumed. Below are some list of supplements to be considered. Quality of supplement is very important. Please study the source and quality of supplement before purchasing.
Multivitamins - Provides overall micronutrients that are depleted from food sources that you are consuming.
Omega 3 (fish oil/krill) - liquid or gel form - Important to have DHA, EPA and GLA with 3g per day supply.
Fiber - Help excrete toxin and contaminants in your food source.
Protein - Whey, Vegan (pea/rice/hemp), Collagen, Amino Complex - increase protein intake.
Vitamin D3 - help increase mood and immune system
Before Making Any Changes
This article is created to straight out the facts about nutrition that was inappropriately promoted to public which cause more harm than good, and in a hope to improve your overall health and performance. However, it is not designed to cure diseases or any medical condition you may have. If your current diet is not helping you accomplish your health and fitness goal, consider shifting your diet with the information provided above after consulting with you physician or dietician.
Kota Shimada
Comments