MACRO NUTRIENTS and NEW ROUTINES

Active Living Active Living
Sep 10, 2024
9 min read

Updated: Feb 21

Summer arrived this week FINALLY!!!

I changed up my training a bit this week, to get a routine that works for my body in the situation I'm in now.

Remembering because of my lack of large intestine, I do some weeks have a bit of a challenge getting the routine right.

BUT just like all of you I am embracing the journey and STILL learning as I go. YES...I still learn. EVERYDAY.

TOPIC OF THE WEEK

NUTRITION and MARO NUTRIENTS - This is a highly personal thing for everyone, BUT there are a few universal facts and applications that needs to be applied.

Our food has nutrients that gets divided into two main categories, MACRO NUTRIENTS and MICRO NUTRIENTS.

MICRO Nutrients are the vitamins, minerals and Phyto nutrients that help our body function. This is a topic that will take a few blogs so we not going to go into details today.

MACRO NUTRIENTS - These are the ones that we need to concentrate on, BECAUSE 9 times out of 10 if we can get this one right we get the Micro's right too.

Macro nutrients is divided into Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats and Fibre, in my coaching I add good old H2O to this category because this combination is a big part of the success.

CARBOHYDRATES the macro nutrient a lot of people believe makes theme fat...and sadly this is one of those nutrients that provides our bodies and brain with fuel to function. Its not the nutrient that makes them pick up weight, its the amount we consume that makes us pick up that weight.

They are found in Fruit, Vegetables, Seeds, nuts, Grains and legumes. The other sources is the processed breads, bakes, over processed fast foods.

SO, next time someone tells you they cutting out carbs....check if they are just cutting out the processed stuff or are they still eating fruit, veg and the occasional legume, grain, seeds and nuts.

We need to consume at least 30-40% of our daily calories from this food group. Each gram of Carbohydrates have 4Kcals and consuming this 30-40% will take care of a lot of our B vitamin RDA and also things like our Zinc, coppers, magnesium, etc. A lot of others but we will cover that in the future.

PROTEIN the hero that almost 90% of the world's population under eat. We need at least .8 - 1g per LB/ 1g-1.5g per kg of bodyweight or Goal Weight if you are on a fat loss journey. This comes to 30-40% of your daily Caloric Allowance. Protein is the amino acids or building blocks that help us retain and build muscle.

This is calculated on a net protein content, thus 100g of chicken breast has approx. 30g of net protein. SO now calculate how much chicken you need to consume in a day to get your amount. In my case I need between 120 and 150g of Protein per day...that is 500g of chicken. I cannot consume so much chicken so I do use other sources to get in my allocation.

Protein is found in Animal Protein ( meats, fish), Dairy , small amounts in Grains (Rice, Oats, Barley, Quinoa to name a few), then also some in Nuts, seeds and legumes. Supplementation normally comes in the form of whey, pea and lactose proteins, many of you are probably using some form of supplementation to up your protein intake. As you can see, consuming a wide variety of food sources will help you make up that protein quite easily.

I started saying protein is the hero - WHY?...well, protein takes double the amount of energy to get digested, hence your body has to work twice as hard to digest that 1 gram that has 4kcals. If you do get enough protein in you body burns more calories without you even lifting a finger.

Makes that Caloric deficit look a bit easier now !!!

FAT also a nutrient that a lot of people, mis understand and most of us over consume. We need fat for our bodies to metabolise protein, for our bodies to produce hormones and for our bodies to protect our internal organs.

The problem comes in when we all eat too much of it, and sadly due to most of our food being over processed we get in the bad fats.

Fats come in all of the food groups that I have already mentioned above. For every 1g it has 9kcals thus its very easy to make up a lot of calories in this department.

We only need about 20% or less of our daily caloric allowance in fats.

SO...make sure you choose your fats wisely.

FIBRE this is a sensitive topic for most of us! We need 25 - 35g of fibre in our diet a day! Fibre is found in our Fruit, veg, grains, seeds etc,...there you see that most of the CARBOHYDRATE group is in here! We need that in our diets.

What does fibre do? It sweeps our intestines and absorbs the excess fat and toxins and then our bodies are able to get rid of it, thus our regularity depends on this!

If our fibre intake is low, our fat and general elimination is low, so is our toxin elimination. It then collects in the digestive system, and anything that gets left there for a while, our body thinks it needs to use and goes to our stores.

Why am I telling you all of this?

BECAUSE this is where the quick fix diets gets it all wrong, its either leave out a meal or food group or use this quick fix supplement, and you will get thin/loose weight.

The holy grail of weight loss is fat loss with MINIMAL MUSCLE LOSS. If we do not eat enough of each macro nutrient our bodies cannot protect our muscle and bone structure thus along with some of the fat you loose you loose a massive amount of muscle mass. The more we loose the more frail we become as we become older.

The more muscle mass we have the more calories we burn. Next week we will chat about how to determine metabolic rate and how much calories is enough. Then the week after we will chat about how to put this all into a sustainable nutrition plan that you can apply for the rest of your life.

The last thing we are talking about today before I tell you all about my training week.

H20 - WATER - we are 65-75% water. Our cells, organs, muscle, skin, blood and brain need water to survive. Dehydration lead to death!

We all know that you can stay without food for extended periods but without water for 3 days the human dies.

NOW, we get water through quite a few sources in our food etc, BUT its not enough.

OUR total amount we need for our body to survive is calculated around 1L per 30kg. NOW, for a 60kg individual this is 2L but for the 90kg individual that is now the mean weight for the average individual world wide its 3L.

The good news is that if you consume a varied balanced diet having 2L -2.5L of water and then your fruits and vegetables you should be ok. BUT essentially we want to be more than ok and also if we train and sweat a lot we need more.

The sad news is...normal tea and coffee is not water.

Water is the herbal tea's you have with no extra's added (milk and sugar) the clean water you drink. This is the ingredient that keeps us regular along with the fibre and also makes sure we flush out the toxins in our excretions.

Right Enough for today lets see what happened this week in my training!

TRAINING DIARY

What did I get to this week

Run 3

Cycle 2

Swim 1

Strength 3

Mobility 2

other 2

MONDAY - Because I took Yesterday as a Rest day - I had a choice for this morning. I can blast an interval session OR I can Do my Heart rate Zone 2 Cardio - 30 mins, I was suppose to do yesterday.

I opted for the HR Zone 2 Cardio - and Then my standard Monday Strength set.

As you can see it was a SLOW, jog walk on the treadmill and I finished it off on the elliptical for a change of scenery.

Strength today was mobility, balance and then a foam roll and stretch session. CAN I REPLACE MY STRENGTH with Mobility?

In most cases NO - as it is two different fitness modalities that BOTH needs to be practiced in your training program. My week was planned with that in, because I know that I have two other sessions coming up for the week.

TUESDAY - Lifting Tuesday, with a TWIST. Most of you know that I do have a few Trail running goals and trails are basically continuous hills and stairs. SO....

Even though this machine is probably one of my least favourite ones in the gym its an incredibly valuable tool for the preparation of hills and trails. So Today Started with a min Steady Stair Session. As you can see I managed to keep my Heart rate from going bonkers and I managed to climb at a steady pace for the duration of the set.

2 months ago my Heart rate kept going into the red on the exact same session. SO...fitness has increased and my body has done some serious adaption!!

We did a Nice full body set after this and then I got on the bike for a quick 20min Ride. Also at a zone 2 Heart rate. Post workout snack - a nice Protein Bar with 10g of protein and only 140Cals - so it doesn't undo all your effort.

WEDNESDAY - Back with the 5am running crew this morning,

Nice 60min Run. We have not taken the dogs with in a couple of months so this morning we had to get our mojo back. But it was Fun!!! and good for the soul.

Today the planned " strength" was stretch and roll post run - AND I WENT, something I have seen as I got into the proper mobility and foam rolling routine, My recovery has been so much better. AND rolling this morning was not as painful as it was a couple of weeks ago.

Foam rolling (fascial release) for the proper term is basically a massage, we all know the benefits of a massage, Foam rolling is a much cheaper and easier version.

Closed it off today with a 15min Sauna session. I have poor lymph drainage due to the lack of large intestine and this helps to get some of the toxins out. I have also seen a improvement in my leg skin texture since I've put this back into my routine

THURSDAY - I decided to add back my boxing class once a week from this week. Thankfully it wasn't too hard on the legs today haha.

Those of you that has been following my training knows that normally on a Thursday I do my 3rd strength set for the week.

I did do a short set before the class, A bit of glutes and hams, Calves, Back and shoulders and then some core stuff. After that Prayed that the class wasn't going to be leg day.

Fortunately for me it was the right decision! It was upper body and then the boxing in there.

Why bring back the boxing in an already jam packed schedule you might ask... Well Cross training, Cardiovascular conditioning in the form of intervals.

Basically this will be my HIIT session for the week, Although my HR did not Reflect it as the non boxing sets was not cardio based but weight based and much slower in pace.

FRIDAY - STILL RIDING HIGH!!!

Another BRICK session here, Spin Class followed by a 1km Swim.

This morning the ride felt good! Compared to last week where it felt like I needed to get into a groove and it didn't happen.

I also fuelled differently, I had a bit more food before I started, I added some Carbs to my drink for the ride and the swim and then had my Shake breakfast before my swim, after my ride, and bob's your uncle. IT WORKED.

I felt great and I am still riding on those endorphins.

This is why I love exercising in the morning - the mood boosting benefits and your day momentum is great after an early workout.

Still kept the swimming in the recovery zone!

As I said, the key to the type of training I do is knowing how to manage the intensity.

SATURDAY - I took an intentional rest day today. I helped out at a running event and I knew that I will be totally out on my feet. So I planned for it.

The important part of training is talking to your trainer and adjusting the intensity and days accordingly. I knew I would it my 10k steps early on, I also knew that sleep will be questionable.

SUNDAY - Trail Fail haha - The weather man got it horribly wrong! I checked three weather apps and all said windy with no rain...and dressed accordingly!

Ended up getting hit by a huge rain shower in non waterproof kit. Getting wet Through and running in the wind after is not an ideal combo - hence I cut the day short, because I need to healthy next week!

The First Photo here showed how the rain approached and there was no shelter. We literally had water flowing on the trails in 3 mins flat.

Still was a great day out on the trails, Looking forward to next week!