Knowing your daily calorie intake is easy but counting and calculating your calorie can be a little more difficult.
Knowing the correct balance between protein, carbohydrates and fats in your daily diet is important.
Proteins -
Help with muscle tissue and bone repair. Also they’re more fillling than the other nutrients as they take longer to digest.Protein provides and helps us with some key body functions;
- Production actin & myosin (muscle enzymes) Enzymes are all proteins
- Antibodies for white blood cells to fight infection.
- Structure of hair, nails, tendons & ligaments
- Blood plasma ( prevents clotting)
- Production of haemoglobin (oxygen transport)
Fats
Fat come’s in two different forms, we have saturated fat and unsaturated fat .
The difference between these fats is quite easy to explain. The main different you can spot with touch and sight, it’s easy to locate saturated fats as are much harder than unsaturated fats.
Example; When kept at room temperature unsaturated fats will have an oily texture.
Saturated fat can be seen more distinctively as they are often hard white or brown fat pieces which you can find foods like a on a joint of meat, these hold 100% saturated fat content and should be avoided at all times.
Unsaturated fats will be found in bottles such like olive oils, vegetable oils and fish oils. These are healthier Monounsaturated oils that should be eaten more.
Carbs
These are the favourite energy source because they access rapidly
Glucose are the only fuel source for brain tissue.
- Primary energy for endurance sports
- CNS energy
- Fat metabolism cant occur unless carbs are present
- Spares protein making the protein avaible for blood ext
All carbs are made up from simple sugars or mono-saccharides.
Monosaccharide, disaccharides or Polysaccharides
Weight loss
When aiming for weight loss it’s essential to know how much calories you have eaten and what food sources are high in fat. Knowing how to calculate carbohydrates can be useful. Carbohydrates are calculated by your body weight below.
Times your body weight = find your grams.
Example. I weight 72 kg, if I want to achieve weight loss then the calculation I make body weight x 5 = 360 grams of Carbohydrates.
- Weight loss x 5
- Weight management x 7
- Weight gain x 10
Weight gain 72 x 10g = 720g Weight management 72 x 7g= 504g.
If your looking for some ideas for low fat meals please follow our Recipes range.
